The Desolation of Mercy
by Hallowed Huntress
Summary: Sequel to the Luxury of Mercy, which must be read first. As everyone prepares to fight the newborns in Seattle, Bella struggles with her new identity as a vampire. But she quickly learns that all of the Volturi must be willing to make incredible sacrifices in order to protect the world. Possible BellaxOC later, though romance is not the focus. Rated M for violence mostly.
1. Preface

**AN: Here's the first chapter of the Desolation of Mercy, as promised. It's not in Bella's perspective, but rather another female vampire (you'll figure out who soon enough, but don't worry, Bella will be back, she's the main character!) but I really felt like this chapter needed to be here in order to set up everything that is to come.**

 **I can't say much else, cause, you know, spoilers, but this one's pretty creepy-awesome.**

* * *

 **Preface**

The lonely window pane in front of me dripped with cool, shiny raindrops and the dim, lamp-lit room around me flickered brightly white as lightning flashed brilliantly outside. The flash was followed several seconds by a boisterous clap of thunder, a sure sign that the entire city was caught the midst of a heavy storm. Heavy black clouds overcrowded the midnight sky, completely blocking out all natural sources of light, and a loud, whistling wind swept through the city. The violent gusts bent the path of the falling water to a forty-five degree angle slant, made the derelict walls of the building I was in shake, and sent any small, loose objects skittering down the sidewalk.

The dark, sodden streets beyond the wetly glistening glass before me were mostly abandoned, except for the occasional, coat-clad person, rushing quickly through the torrential rain towards their nighttime destination. And as I watched them bustle irritably by, clutching firmly the handle of their umbrellas, the brims of their hats, or whatever other object they could spare to protect their heads, I realized that the weather outside was the perfect picture of misery.

One young man in particular, I noticed, was wearing nothing but a simple long-sleeve T-shirt and jeans, which were utterly soaked through. He shivered violently with chattering teeth as he strode hurriedly past the apartment I was being kept in, and kept turning his head, searching for refuge as he walked towards the empty restaurant across the street. Knowing from his franticly sweeping brown eyes that he was human, and remembering that as such he was incredibly susceptible to the tempestuous elements around him without sufficient protection, I was especially sensitive to his plight. I felt that, although we were different species, it mirrored my own perfectly as we both were single-mindedly focused on finding a way to escape our miserable surroundings.

I was indoors and immortal so the rain wasn't the source of my misery, though. Instead, I was trapped in the top story of an old skyscraper, bound from neck-to-foot in thick, enchanted chains, and forced to sit painfully upright in a reinforced steel chair which was bolted to the cold cement floor. Thanks to my cruel captors, I had been sitting in this exact same spot for months now, so my skin was beginning to petrify beneath these restricting chains, and my eyes were starting film over from being forced to stare endlessly out of this same window into the bleak world beyond.

I had tried to break out of my binds numerous times, but whatever enchantment had been cast over the biting metal was too powerful for even my inhuman strength to best. Of course, given the weak state of half-starvation my incarcerators kept me in, I wasn't entirely surprised. Even though I didn't expend much energy just sitting here, I was only brought me half of a fresh meal every three months, instead of a full meal every two, which left me with a constant burning itch in my throat, and made me too lethargic to struggle for very long.

So there was no way out.

I was stuck in this ramshackle room indefinitely.

And nothing for me to do but look out of the same grimy window pane as the skies cried for all the cruelty and injustice in this world.

With nothing else to occupy myself with, I continued to watch the totally soaked man scramble to get away from the rain for several more minutes, having become somewhat interested in his fate. One of the warm, dry workers at the restaurant he was heading towards routinely put up a "closed" sign in the entrance window. I could clearly tell from the wet human's panicked gaze towards it, that he had been intending to find refuge there, and as he slunk into the dirty, dilapidated alley behind our apartment, I knew that he had nowhere else to go. I felt a brief pang of empathetic sadness for him as he curled up beside a rusty dumpster, underneath a scraped sheet of tin to pathetically try to shield himself from the cold. It must be awful to try and sleep under such unforgiving conditions.

But I was more terrified of what my captors would decide to do with him if he remained there long enough to vocalize my distress.

Unbeknownst to the public at large, the vindictive creatures holding me here in this cold, dark room against my will, keeping were building an army. They had collected as many from the supernatural community who were sympathetic to their harebrained scheme as they could muster, and when that was not enough, they were avidly engaged in the process of making more. Forcing humans into a supernatural role by transforming them into vampires, that is, and then brainwashing the horde of confused, hungry, desperate newborns into following their lead.

Knowing nothing else, and still in the unfortunate phase where they rejected the difficult truth that it was natural for their kind to kill and consume humans, the newborns were easily swayed by the pernicious lies that my imprisoners fed them—about what they ought to eat, about who their enemies in this world were, and about who they could trust to watch their backs. The ones who had forced my powdery, atrophying skin beneath these restricting chains, and forced my filmy eyes to stare endlessly out of this window into the bleak world beyond, made many assurances to the new vampires. But they were empty assurances. My captors cared nothing for these frightened creatures they had copiously created—after they served their purpose, they were all going to be mercilessly slaughtered.

And although every newborn had been quick to accept the idea, the Volturi were not the bad guys. Sure, I knew from firsthand experience living for some time among their coven, that their methods were often violent, and unforgiving. But unfortunately because so many in the paranormal world were careless, lawless and all too frequently just plain stupid, the world needed an iron fist to keep order.

And the thirty-or-so newborns crowded tightly, some even sitting atop on another on the three dark green sofas facing away from me, anxiously awaiting the return of their creator, really ought to thank the Volturi for their work, not condemn them for it.

But of course they wouldn't listen to me—I ate humans utterly without remorse. I found it terribly ironic that they despised me on that front, because all of my meals were brought to me by my captors. Hypocritically, the ones keeping me here thought it was best to keep me just above the brink of starvation by allowing me to feed from unconscious persons infrequently, rather than let my body deteriorate like the newborns' did. Though, I should not have been surprised that the new vampires were utterly illogical when it came to matters of diet, because their thought processes had never been completely rational.

From the moment they were created, the newborns were all put under the influence of powers which altered their thinking, and thus they were unswervingly loyal to their master, the duplicitous person leading this terrible operation, no matter how nonsensical their master's arbitrary distinctions between right and wrong were to an unmanipulated mind. Thankfully, I was immune to these powers, but seeing their effects on others was no less traumatizing.

I wanted to feel sorry for them, but all I could manage was a sort of flimsy pity—which took a lot of concentration to maintain—before I was suddenly brightly awash with luminous happiness again. And as I watched an indistinct dark shape leap out of the murky alley shadows and a flash of red, before the wet young man taking refuge there crumpled to the wet ground, clutching his bloodied wrist in howling pain, I tried in vain to cling onto my deep sorrow for his fate. I fought to hold onto my fierce anger at the one who had bitten him, and my overall despair at my current situation. But ultimately all of my negative emotions refused to stay within my being for longer than a fleeting, fraction of a second before a warm sunshiny feeling welled up from inside and flushed it all away.

In some ways, this quirk of mine was a curse—feeling happy all the time certainly felt great, but it was unsettling, horrifying even, when I ought to be feeling something else.

To watch daily so much misery and fail to feel anything aside from exuberant joy made me feel sick inside—especially when the copious amounts of spells set in place in this apartment neutralized the normal bleed-over that my happiness had on others. The newborns felt nothing of the bright, limitless cheer I had once shared with everyone around me, instead they were under the influence of other powers, conspiring to make their minds and hearts swirl darkly with depressive and paranoid thought patterns. The enchantments heavily lacing this rundown apartment complex were very much like the thick, oppressive storm clouds congregated outside in the foreboding night sky, blocking out all traces of hopeful light. And the wicked bewitchments set upon those recently immortalized, naïve hearts were like the relentless battering winds and the jarring thunderclaps, wearing their spirits down and alighting their whole beings with fidgety fear.

But I felt none of it.

And I never would—the forecast in my heart would always be sunny.

Even as I twisted to watch the thin, paint-flaking door to this room be abruptly cast open, and the one I had come to passionately despise in so far as my immortally jovial chemistry allowed stride purposefully into the room, I couldn't be miserable. Even as I saw my nemesis' pale hands clutching the poor, sopping wet young man by the hair as he writhed and screamed in the midst of his recently started transformation, no venom welled in my eyes for his sake. And when my enemy angrily tossed the man's pain-wracked body onto the hard linoleum floor directly in front of the blankly-gazing crowd of newborns, no sobs left my throat, even though I desperately wanted them to.

Instead, a warm smile graced my flaking lips.

By contrast, the newborns sitting listlessly on the couches betrayed no emotion, they simply stared emptily with their desolate, blackening eyes at the wriggling form before them, utterly unmoved by the human's acute suffering. This sort of heartless, purposeless torture was something they saw almost every day, and even in their advanced state of thirst, they were expected to stoically resist the freely bleeding wrist lying only a few feet away from their ravenous teeth. The delicious salty scent caused me to squirm irritably in my chair and hiss with hungry anticipation, but thanks to their cruel indoctrination, not a single newborn moved a muscle towards the man or dared to show any outward indication that the human blood was effecting them. Well, all that is, except for one, a scrawny brunette teen boy who licked his thirstily dripping lips and struggled to turn away from the intoxicating scent.

He couldn't help but start frothing at the mouth, it was a perfectly natural instinctual response to the presence of viable sustenance, and to punish him for it would be like punishing a baby for crying when it thirsted for mother's milk. It was totally unfair, but I knew all too well that if the teen acted on his natural impulses, it wouldn't be met with approval. Though I could not begin to fathom why, my captors were puritanical with their insistence that the newborns abstain from drinking human blood.

And so when the unfortunate teen whose hungry mouth had sent rivulets of venom streaming down his chin suddenly lurched forward instinctively to consume the hot, salty blood spilling temptingly from the soon-to-be-newborn's injured wrist, I knew exactly what was going to happen. But I couldn't even bring myself to scream as the rest of the horde—all thirty or so mentally-addled vampires—viciously dived for their dissenting companion and proceeded to immediately tear him apart as they had been indoctrinated to do.

No, there wasn't a drop of negativity in my entire body. I was happy.

A serious of sickening crunches and sadistic snarls penetrated the musty air as the swarm of thirsty newborns heartlessly, mindlessly attacked their comrade. All too quickly the callously starved, confused newborn had been brutally ripped to bits by dozens of savage hands and teeth in order to preserve the life of the man in the midst of transforming. And when his alabaster remains were summarily cast by his "friends" into the low-burning fireplace on the other side of the room, for the "unforgiveable crime" of simply being thirsty, I wanted to be sick…

…But I was still happy.

While glittering skin licked alight with raging orange fire amid the smoldering logs, the party of famished newborns slowly shuffled drearily back to their seats.

They resumed their apathetic positions and bored expressions almost instantly, like nothing had occurred, and their dark eyes reflected only the leaping flames, not even the slightest trace of tears as they watched the remainder of their newest addition's transformation. Their creator looked on them and their unnatural successes with a cruel smirk and appreciative eyes.

Again, I wanted to feel something, _anything_ that could affirm the truth that I was gentle at heart, and horrified by the crazy, senseless violence that had just transpired, rather than some kind of callous sadist. But I was still happy—joyous, actually.

And as my nemesis, the one responsible for the miserable second life given to these unnaturally behaving newborns, drifted gracefully over the dingy, stained floor to where I was incarcerated, I fought harder than ever to allow an appropriate degree of fear surge into my unbeating, unchanging heart as the vicious vampire waxed closer. But despite all my efforts, nothing at all could puncture the bubbly warmth that constantly enveloped me for more than the barest of moments. And although I flinched slightly as a unnaturally frigid hand cupped my bare cheek—not accustomed to much of anything being colder than I was, given my glacial temperature—they joy never waned.

Thin white lips parted to blow an icy breath across my ear, and I shivered instinctively as the coolness wafted across the sensitive skin. But the permanent smile etched into my features never left my face—which my nemesis quickly noticed, and responded with a furious growl.

"How do you do it?" came the acid whisper against my skin, before the enemy paused to derangedly lick the side of my face—which, given their sick infatuation with me, was not an uncommon occurrence. "How are you always so happy?" the cold voice continued, darkened with an all-consuming envy for what I presently resented as a curse, before its owner dipped to nibble softly at the sensitive skin on my neck, as though we were lovers, rather than jailer, and prisoner. It irked me that they dared to corrupt one of my favorite ways to receive affection from my long-lost mate. But my irritation, unfortunately was quickly replaced with an all-encompassing exuberance.

"Even when everything around you is terrible, even when _your_ life is terrible…" the acerberic voice continued in jealous awe, after rising from my neck, before biting down harder—enough to make me cry out in pain for half-a second as razor-sharp teeth easily broke my petrified skin.

But then I was suddenly involuntarily moaning in pleasure as a rough pink tongue gently caressed the spot, smothering the dry, cracked flesh in sticky venom. I hated that they could do this to me, that they could elicit these kind of reactions from my body against my will. But I hated even more the fact that hate was largely beyond me—I wanted to loathe the enemy, to wish them dead in a thousand creatively cruel ways, to feel an opposition to their existence so strong that it itched and festered like an open wound.

But I just couldn't.

"Being chained to a chair… being presumed dead by your mate…" the lips buried in my venom-glossed neck purred, each syllable vibrating sensuously, deep into my muscles.

I stiffened as the one I truly loved above all else was briefly, condescendingly referenced. If there was one person whom I could actually mourn the loss of, despite my severely limited emotional range, it was him—oh how much I missed his soft, wistful smiles, his tender touches, his silky, wavy black hair, and the way he would stare awestruck into my eyes like I was his only goddess after we made love.

Missing him could actually make venom want to pool in my eyes if I really pushed it with all of my might—but I refused to give my captor the satisfaction of witnessing my sorrow, so I just did what was natural and kept smiling. And as my nemesis suddenly raised their head, taking disapproving notice of my beaming complexion, I stiffened imperceptibly, preparing for the worst—they had tried for decades to make me share the misery that utterly crushed their soul, but to no avail.

 _Would they finally decide that their prolonged quest to send me spiraling into black despair would never come to fruition, and choose to end my existence?_ I hoped. _Would I finally be freed from these harsh, metal chains by way of the flickering fireplace flames? Or would I be forced to numbly continue on, happy all the while, where I secretly desired to feel sadness?_

My nemesis gave no answer to my inner inquiries, but simply stared pointedly into my milky burgundy eyes, while brushing their freezing hand in mock-gentleness over my other cheek this time. "You are my miracle."

"I am not _your_ anything." I protested, though the words came out with a sugary sweetness, rather than the biting tone I had been striving for.

I guess my voice was cursed too.

"Ah, but you are," my nemesis contested with a dark sneer, their tone heavy with severe contempt and their shiny white teeth gritted angrily in response to my chipper statement. "You are my sunshine, my everything," they continued in a mocking, sing-song voice, and I was about to protest their declaration again, before their frosty lips suddenly furiously crashed against mine, leaving me breathless as they pulled away.

"You are _mine_ , Didyme."


	2. Chapter 1: On the Offensive

**AN:** **Ah, sorry for the delay! This chapter gave me a lot of trouble. I ended up splitting it in half, (the second part coming soon) and revising it a lot, so here it finally is!** **From this chapter on out, I plan to give the dates. The Luxury of mercy pretty much all happened on Monday, March 19th and Saturday, March 24th (I messed on the dates in my first publication of chapter 23, so I went back and fixed it.) I am going with the Calendar that Stephanie Meyer gave for New Moon and Eclipse, which is the 2007 calendar, but because they repeat every so often, it could also be the 2018 calendar… So whichever you prefer. :)**

 **Oh, and the battle is on June 15th, so the countdown begins…**

 **And we are back to Bella! Crazy that Didyme's still kickin' huh? More on that later… *rubs hands schemingly* ;)**

* * *

 **Chapter One: On the Offensive**

 _May 13th_

I immediately spun in a tight, full circle to face the indomitable man behind me with a horrified look on my crystalline face as his entirely too casual suggestion registered in my sensitive ears. I found myself speechless in shock, so I merely blinked once; twice, incredulous that Aro would throw me into the middle of intense combat with absolutely no training. Sink-or-swim teaching wasn't really his style—or at least it hadn't been, up to this point. Our entire interaction in the throne room had consisted of him giving me all the information I needed to make the best, most informed decision, and to be fully prepared to deal with consequences of my choice. Even when it had come to the act of feeding, a concept which was completely _impossible_ to practice beforehand, he had still given me the best preparation he could, I reluctantly acknowledged.

But now he was switching tactics?

"Shall we begin, Isabella?" He repeated cordially in response to my silent protest. He extended a single palm outwards and swept it across the violent scene to further indicate exactly what he wanted me to participate in, before he began sauntering steadily closer with an unreadable expression on his face.

Presuming his movements towards me were indicative of the intention to attack, I was surprised as an overwhelming, and completely irrational surge of fear overtook my whole being. Sure, I had smacked him against the back wall in the hallway downstairs earlier with little effort, snapping his spine in the process, and all logic said that I could probably do so again, but that had been largely on accident and without any training on how to direct my strength. I wasn't so sure I would be that lucky twice.

Especially now that Aro was prepared to fight back.

"But I don't have any idea how to fight!" I protested frantically.

I tightened my protective hands around my neck and nervously took a few steps backwards from the man as he strode purposefully closer to me over the dark red mats with his tall black combat boots. My desperate protest seemed to give him pause, and he abruptly stopped a few feet from me milliseconds after the words had left my trembling lips, tilting his head to one side in curious examination.

"You seemed fairly adept at it a few moments ago," Aro commented aloud with a bewildered expression, one of his elegant eyebrows raising in disbelief towards my inarticulate statement. His hands traveled slowly backwards to rub reminiscently across his back, as if visually reminding me of the damage I had inflicted there.

"Have you forgotten your impressive strength already, my dear?" He asked calmly, with absolutely no trace of wrath or remorse for having been totally smacked down by the inexpert flailings of an angry newborn—which was just as comforting as it was eerie.

I immediately dropped the hands I had been protectively clutching my neck with at my sides in acute embarrassment. If it had been possible for vampires to blush in self-mortification, I would have been beet-red at that moment—of course I hadn't forgotten! Not only was that now impossible, given my cursedly impeccable memory, but I still felt completely aghast with myself for having done such a thing. I had reacted in the heat of the moment, something that I always tried to avoid, especially now that it was apparent I could do considerable damage.

I didn't really want to hurt him, and I was terrified witless of the prospect of him hurting me. I had seen how very near Felix had come to being brutally decapitated in the midst of battle, and I harbored a significant amount of trepidation about encountering similar risks myself. Because getting beheaded definitely wasn't on my to-do list today.

"…Shouldn't I at least learn some moves first?" I weakly asked, balling my hands into loose fists and making little punching motions in the air to show how juvenile and pathetic my combat technique was at this point—nowhere near the kind of definitive, aggressive lunges I was seeing being expertly enacted around me. I didn't even know how to throw a proper punch, let alone take on a vampire who probably had mastered every martial art and had been honing their battle skills for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

"Today, I would like to see how you naturally fight," Aro explained as though it should be obvious why he would begin my battle-training in such a manner. But I failed to see how putting my uncontrollable strength and complete unfamiliarity with fighting to the test would help anyone, especially him. "During later sessions of course, I will provide more guided instruction," he continued reassuringly.

I sighed in relief that he didn't intend to stake the fate of the entire vampire race on me without teaching me any additional skills to aid me during the pivotal confrontation. Not only would such a thing be foolish in the extreme—risking your one and only hope by tossing her into a war zone completely unprepared to defend herself would be tactical suicide—but it would be terrifying to have so much pressure exerted on me to protect everyone else from destruction, when I really had no idea what I was doing.

"But for now, I simply want you to follow your instincts. The guard needs more training fighting against unpracticed newborns such as yourself—Alice has predicted those will be our enemies after all," He clarified as one of the purposes for throwing me into the middle of this crazy violence without any initial assistance.

I hesitantly conceded that made some degree of sense—I wasn't the only one who needed to be physically prepared for the upcoming battle, and it was unlikely that our opponent would have much time to train their newborns since no signs of their existence had yet been detected in the Seattle area.

"And besides, you may know more about how to be successful in combat than you think. You certainly caught me off guard earlier," he added with a sly smirk, splaying a single hand over his chest in mock-injury.

"Okay…" I conceded hesitantly, before winding up an inexpert fist to launch halfheartedly at his face, intent on showing him just how bad my natural coordination was. It was especially bad now because I was finding myself unable to muster the same degree of savage anger I had earlier, which had allowed me to hurtle his whole body furiously through the air. Without that vicious fury boiling through my being, my movements lacked initiative, and were as limp and unattractive as wet noodles.

"However," he said, suddenly holding out a halting arm to block my progress and the unskilled blow I had been thinking of delivering to his finely chiseled jaw, "…before you become too enthusiastic, I think it would be prudent to explain the rules of engagement."

 _Oh. Right. Rules…_

"Rules?" I asked, turning my head slowly toward the one-one-one skirmishes occurring all around me. I watched with severe skepticism as the leather-clad pairs lunged savagely for each other's heads, with dripping white teeth snapping wildly at vulnerable necks, and hard hands groped for appendages they could tear from their sockets. As far as I could tell, the only rule was to try your hardest to murder your opponent before they murdered you.

"Ah, yes. As Felix and Yvonne demonstrated, we do not actually fight to the death, as it may initially appear, but rather until one or the other concedes defeat," he explained calmly. He made it clear from his gestures and relatively unruffled posture that he believed the confrontations we stood amidst were routine squabbles like rock-paper-scissors, rather than anything as lethally serious as they seemed to me.

But although his calmness about the subject unnerved me—how could someone be so completely desensitized to violence that they didn't even blink as their beloved covenmates lunged for each other's throats?—I already knew that.

"I had gathered as much," I acknowledged shortly before quickly turning around again to catch Chelsea crumpling to the floor under the severe, unblinking gaze of Jane.

As soon as Chelsea collapsed, she desperately cried out the same Italian word to halt her attacker's movements as Felix had done just moments before Yvonne's deadly hand would have sliced through his vulnerable esophagus. And remarkably, the cruel little blonde froze immediately upon hearing that singular declaration, before cracking a wicked smile and sauntering off triumphantly toward the back wall to stand statuesquely still beside Yvonne.

"But what's with yelling pay-tuh… er… pee-yay-tuh?" I enquired, struggling to wrap my mouth around the foreign word.

" _Pieta,_ " Aro corrected, his pink tongue rolling elegantly over each syllable with flawless ease, the gorgeousness of his perfect accent sending a shock of fire traveling through my entire body, burning deep into my bones— _that voice could whisper naughty things in my ear, any day,_ I thought dreamily.

" _Pieta_ roughly translates to 'mercy' in English," he continued encyclopedically, utterly oblivious to, or perhaps simply wisely choosing to ignore my potent, inappropriate desire for him—I was entirely sure it was written all over my face. Instead he simply paced in a slow, deliberate circle around me, with his hands steepled together in front of his heavy leather coat, gliding over the padded floor with as much ease in his taut pants as he did over the stone floor in his tailored robes.

"The complete plea, _abbi pietá,_ as you heard Renata declare earlier, means 'have mercy'," he offered as the origin of the cry, implying with a slight narrowing of the position of his hands that it was typically shortened out of desperation. I found myself nodding vigorously to indicate that I understood.

"Oh, so you cry 'mercy' when you're about to die, and your opponent just stops then?" I simplified aloud, just to be certain that I fully grasped the concept.

Aro verified my inquiry with a shallow nod and a widening grin. "Although, _die_ is a bit drastic, I think," he countered after a thoughtful moment, placing a comforting hand against the durable sleeve of my Alice-approved fighting jacket. "Having your head removed from your body will not kill you, so you need not fear that itself," he clarified. "But it is rather incapacitating," he warned, sweeping a wide arc with his arm towards Caius and his sparring partner Afton.

I gasped as I saw that Afton's now-very-visible body lied headless on the ground, twitching violently in a vain attempt to wiggle away from Caius. The fierce man pinned Afton in place with a single boot planted firmly on the skinnier vampire's chest. Incapacitating indeed, there was no way Afton was going to escape Caius now.

"So I would advise not allowing it to happen to you in the midst of actual combat," he supplied in serious tone.

My head bobbed vigorously up and down in agreement with Aro's last statement, and I gulped as I watched Caius mime with sadistic pleasure the action of lighting his opponent on fire with a torch. Afton's discarded head tried to scream from a few feet away, though thankfully the snowy-haired vampire's merciless hands were empty. Still, it was chilling scene to witness, and although I never actually got cold anymore temperature-wise, I shivered heartily as Caius' pale lips split to reveal a maniacal, venomy grin before he suddenly stepped off of Afton's immobile form and sped across the matted floors to stand proudly with the other winners.

Once you lost your head, barring exceptional circumstances, you were done for—that much was very clear.

"I do not typically allow decapitation to happen here, however, because so many concurrent reattachments of the head tend to expend a lot of energy," Aro went on, and I was surprised that even as I only half-listened, devoting the remainder of my attention toward watching the other furious battles surrounding me come to a _pieta_ -induced conclusion, that I caught every word. Another perk of vampire hearing, I guess. "Also, it _is_ rather painful," he added, almost as an afterthought.

It stunned me that Aro considered the economics of circumventing unnecessary extra meals to be more important than dodging severe discomfort—I would have listed the agony as my _first_ reason to avoid losing my head. I guess, as the leader of a large coven which required a steady diet of unmissed human beings to feed upon, Aro had drastically different priorities than I did.

"Of course, it is not in Caius' nature to listen to any plea for mercy," Aro revealed sadly with the barest of cringes. "And he is too proud to ever beg for it himself, so I permit an exception in his case," he said with a trace of exasperation, betraying his extreme discomfort with the practice, and giving me the distinct impression that Aro knew all too well for himself precisely what it felt like to be on the receiving end of Caius' unwillingness to heed the white flag.

I shuddered again as my vivid imagination pictured Aro, armless and pinned harshly to the floor beneath the suffocating boot of his "brother", screaming " _Pieta!_ " at the top of his lungs, only for his raw imploration to be answered with a vindictive kick in the jaw that cracked his skin and sent Aro's terrified head sailing across the room. My whole body tremored in response to the fabricated vision and I had to blink several times to banish it completely.

Needless to say, I had no desire to take on Caius any time soon if that was to be my fate.

"Okay, but other than that, there aren't really any rules, right? I mean, it looks like all powers are fair game," I noted, directing my darkening gaze toward Alec and Chen. They were still at an impasse in their fighting as Chen flitted cheerily from place to place, always barely escaping the reach of Alec's noxious, sensory depriving cloud by disappearing at the last moment.

"Of course. Learning to use our gifts offensively is vital," Aro said, as though his reasoning for not leveling the playing field more by forbidding the usage of such talents was perfectly self-evident. "However, there are a few other rules, dearest Isabella,"

"Mates _never_ fight one another," he spoke in a forbidding tone, as though the notion of doing so was unthinkably abominable.

I was initially confused that there would even be a rule for such a thing, since the mates of Aro, Caius and Corin were all non-combatants, until I recalled that Chelsea and Afton (both combative members) were mates, and thus the restriction applied to them. Still, I was stunned by Aro's vehemence about this rule and found it rather irritating that no one had seen it fit to tell me yet precisely what being "mated" entailed, and why universally, all vampires seemed to regard it as something far higher than human marriage. Was it some twisted kind of destiny, like werewolf imprinting? Some astrological alignment of the stars? Soulmates, or whatever?

Whatever it was, having surreptitiously caught Aro and his mate Sulpicia tenderly caressing one another in a dim corner of the fortress on accident while I had been making my way towards the dungeons to break old stuff as was my habit, I completely grasped that it was important. The loving way the amorous couple had gazed into each other's ruby red eyes, and the incredible gentleness and coordination of their physical contact spoke of a connection I feared that I would never understand. The bond between mates—whatever that word really meant—was unfathomably deep, and profoundly sacred to Aro (and likely to every other mated vampire), not something to be trifled with.

"It would be utterly unmanageable to try to seriously harm the one you care for above all else, you see," Aro elucidated upon seeing my inquisitive expression, while tucking both hands protectively in front of his heart, as if to shield the one who possessed it.

I looked away so that he wouldn't see the seething green envy flaring up in my eyes—the depth of emotion he felt for that other woman was painfully obvious, and I felt physically sick for wishing the timid, gentle vampire ill because she deserved none of my ire. I should be happy for her… for them, because they were evidently ecstatic to have each other, but instead I kind of wished that Sulpicia was a combative vampire, because right now it would feel really good to try and tear her pretty little head off.

"And the final rule, is more of a procedural one—which is that we typically spar in rounds." Aro directed a single, pallid finger towards the far wall where Yvonne, Jane, Caius, Alice and a few other guards whose names eluded me stood resolutely in a victorious line. "Once the victors of this round have all lined up on that wall, they pair off to fight one another, and those who conceded defeat pair amongst themselves," he explicated. His scarlet eyes swept eagerly back and forth between the two remaining pairs of combatants as they fervently struggled to subdue their equally skilled partners. "That way, eventually one comes to find a sparring partner with whom they are rather evenly matched."

"That makes sense," I conceded as I watched Corin finally subdue Demetri. He weakly choked out a breathy " _pieta!"_ just nanoseconds before Corin's vicious teeth would have sank into his neck, leaving only Alec and Chen as the only unfinished pair on the floor.

"So now what?"

"Alec, Chen," Aro barked suddenly in an authoritative voice, turning to face the pair as they obediently froze mid-fight and looked anticipatingly towards their master, dutifully awaiting his orders. "That is quite enough. Shall we call it a draw?"

The smoky duo looked very much as though they did _not_ want to call it draw and wanted instead to persist in battling one another. But after sending each other fleeting disparaging glances and Chen released the slightest of huffs, they abruptly complied with Aro's command by dissipating their powers and striding silently towards the victors' wall.

It took a few moments for Alec's sluggish black gas to seep completely back into the skin of his hands, and I wondered, as it trailed lazily around the room in oozing, snake-like branches, if he was slowing down it's movements on purpose to indicate his extreme reluctance to end the fight. I knew, having witnessed the terrifying miasma move with much greater swiftness before, that Alec's power wasn't operating at full speed, but it wasn't immediately obvious as to why. I fervidly hoped that he wasn't running out of energy—that wouldn't be good news for anyone using their powers today.

But just as I began to consider the ramifications of using one's gifts continuously to spar, and the kind of adverse effects that might have on one's nutritional stores after a while, Aro promptly redirected his piercing gaze towards the second person standing in the victor's line. He then parted his thin lips to speak, silencing my analytical thoughts.

"Jane, my dear, would you be willing to engage with Isabella?"

The little vampire immediately stepped forward from the lineup in response to Aro's suggestion. Her short black boots and tight leather clothes looked very out of place on her girlish figure, especially when paired with the mature-looking bun she wore.

Once she had split from the others, Jane gave an obedient nod towards Aro before suddenly fixating her wild red eyes on me. "I would be delighted to, Master," she said in her high, cold voice. Her pouty lips curled into a malefic sneer as she stared unblinkingly into my nervous eyes.

"I'm not so sure that's…" I began to protest Aro's decision, having seen what the tiny menace before could do, and doubting my abilities to counteract it.

But as my gaze flickered observantly around the room, I suddenly realized that it was already too late to avoid confronting her. Judging from the shocked visages of every other vampire in the room, and the intense, creepy way Jane was staring at me, like she was trying to burn a hole straight through my impenetrable skull, and how her pearly teeth gritted in frustration after a while, I figured that she must be trying to use her powers on me: an action which would definitely count as an attack.

Somewhat surprisingly, however, her efforts were entirely in vain, as Renata's had been earlier in the hallway. I felt the tiniest of brushes against my shield—something I hadn't been able to perceive as a human—when Jane exerted the full force of her power on me, but the sensation I felt was soft and weak, like a whisper, not the screaming agony I knew she was capable of inducing. It was a surreal experience, and judging from the stunned looks I was getting from the rest of the vampires in the room, I wasn't the only one who believed so.

Apparently, no one had _ever_ withstood Jane like this before.

My mouth involuntarily twisted into a grim smirk of satisfaction as I watched the girl before me square her shoulders, adopt an athletic stance and ball her fists so tightly that her bloodless veins bulged under the pressure while never breaking eye contact, as if doing so would bolster her attack. But no matter what she did, her gift simply wouldn't work on me. And as her cherubic face contorted from an expression of furious determination into one of uncomprehending fear, it slowly began to dawn on me that she too, like Renata, probably had no idea how to fight without the use of that ability.

My smirk grew into a full, feral grin, and it startled me how pleased the beast inside me was with the strong scent of fear I suddenly detected wafting from the impotent youth now trembling ever so slightly before me. Sure, I disliked that Jane generally gained a serious sadistic thrill from using her gifts, but I had no real conception of why the smell of her terror was so deeply gratifying. To beam so ecstatically as the undefeated blonde cowered in my presence was not something my human self would have ever enjoyed.

But before I could even begin to berate myself for delighting in the her mounting terror, one of Jane's diminutive booted feet stumbled backwards ever so slightly as she cowered. Suddenly a fighting instinct that I hadn't known I possessed kicked into gear, making me want nothing more than to give the heartless runt a taste of her own caustic medicine.

With hardly any warning, I took off running, zipping in a straight line towards her, whipping up a heavy gust of wind as I moved at full speed. I was still carrying that savage smile as I bolted across the expansive length of the padded floor between us in mere seconds.

My poor opponent, who was still staggering backwards in utter shock that her indomitable abilities had been so completely thwarted, barely had any time to react. She only just began to sprint desperately out of the way once I had already made it halfway to her. Her bony little arms pumped fast as she ran with all her might and her little legs spread to their utmost limit to maximize the length of her stride. While I earnestly chased her around the training room, I was quite impressed that she could achieve a speed similar to the other members of the guard, despite her size.

But I was faster.

After a few exhilarating moments of running lopsided circles around Aro and the other interested onlookers, I was finally within grabbing reach. Jane skillfully dodged the first few obvious swipes of my powerful hands in her direction, though I could tell from her absolutely petrified-in-horror face that she knew she could not evade me forever.

For my fifth attempt, I swung both hands to seize her bun-bearing head from behind. Jane, sensing the air disturbance around her face, rapidly ducked out of the way just in time while still running away from me as fast as she could. Feeling my poised fingers converge with nothing but thin air between them again, I quickly redirected them as I ran, this time aiming to grab her shoulders as they bobbed increasingly closer to me.

However, as I shot my hands out again, I realized too late that I had moved much nearer to Jane. So instead of roughly grabbing her shoulders, my arms darted forward, shooting past her skinny frame. My hands then closed tightly around her chest, dragging her petite body hard into mine with a force that sent us both toppling in a tangled heap to the floor.

We tumbled over the thick mats like a stray log rolling down a mountainside for a while before finally the ridiculous momentum that we had built up wore out. We rolled to an unceremonious stop only a few inches away from the heavy lead entrance doors on the other side of the room.

As Jane frantically tried to extricate her tangled limbs from mine, I simply lied there immobile for a factionary moment, taking it all in—I had outrun a vampire, something I never thought I would be able to do. I was suddenly, harshly brought back to reality, however as Jane managed to free all her appendages from mine except one. I caught an unreadable expression on her shell-shocked face as she swiftly twisted her little head downwards, like she intended to bite off the arm that was still trapped securely beneath my unmoving torso in order to escape.

I was astonished that she would really go that far to save face in a sparring match—but as my scarlet eyes flickered between the unbelievable sight and Aro, who stood a few feet away watching us with undisguised fascination, I suddenly understood that he probably wanted our fights here to be as realistic as possible in order to more adequately prepare us to survive. And if this was real combat and I managed to place Jane in a position to cry for mercy, she would lose a lot more than just an arm.

If this fight was for real, Jane could lose her life.

But just as her venomy teeth were about to slice through the leathery sleeve of her combat jacket and take her arm with it, I decided not to let Jane make that desperate sacrifice anyway.

Abruptly, I sprung to my feet before launching a well-placed kick directly into her stomach. The heavy impact of my lace-up boot into her surprisingly yielding middle knocked her back onto the matted floor with such herculean force that the durable outer covering split. A few fluffy bits of insulation spilled out of the ensuing hole, and Jane was rendered too dazed to move.

I wondered, (a morbid curiosity, really) as the back of her head smacked violently against the floor and whipped forward unnaturally in response to the shockwaves rippling through the entire room, whether it was possible for vampires to get concussions or whiplash from such severe head trauma. The idea of a vampire getting injured at all was so very new to me—when I had first met Edward, I had believed vampires to be utterly indestructible. But having broken Aro's back earlier today, and knowing that the Volturi made it their business to exterminate wayward vampires, I was beginning to understand that although we operated on a completely different level of strength than humans, vampires were still breakable under the right circumstances.

Taking advantage of Jane's incognizance, I adjusted my stance so that I was towering intimidatingly above her. Not knowing what else to do, I gradually pressed a single foot against her chin, tilting her face back incrementally, as I had seen Caius do to Aro in my mind's eye, and waited with a fierce expression for my opponent to regain consciousness.

As Jane's purplish eyelids slowly flickered open and she completely registered the lethal threat pressing against her vulnerable throat, I felt her gulp beneath the rough sole of my boot—a sensation which made me vastly uncomfortable. And after a few moments of staring pleadingly into my unreadable, black eyes, finally realizing the inescapability of her current situation, she took a shaky inhale.

I heard a tiny, breathy " _pieta…"_ escape her trembling lips.

And though her pathetic plea would have been totally imperceptible to human ears, every single person converged in this room had heard the unbelievable sound, and many gasped in open amazement.

I quickly drew back my foot as soon as I heard it and kindly offered an upturned palm to help Jane to her feet. For a few seconds Jane just stared disbelievingly at the hand I was offering her. The look of compassionate concern that had suddenly washed over my features after the adrenaline of the fight wore off seemed to particularly unnerve her. Eventually, though, with no other options, she tentatively took my hand.

I easily hauled Jane up—her insubstantial weight feather-light in my hands—but as soon as she could stand for herself, she hastily swatted off my assisting hands. She walked swiftly away from me, holding her head with one tiny hand like she felt slightly dizzy, and warily glanced behind herself at me with wide, terrified eyes like I was some kind of hellish being from the netherworld. My gentle heartstrings stung as I noticed the same horror-stricken expression reflected on the visages of so many other members of the guards. And as Jane turned away in shame, keeping her eyes glued firmly to the cushy ground beneath her in order to avoid the embarrassment of watching the entire guard stare plainly at her weakness, I abruptly felt like some kind of apology was in order.

"Jane… I'm sorry, I…"

"Don't you dare patronize me!" the young girl hissed acidly.

I blinked in shock as she delivered one last murderous glare—the impact of which was significantly lessened by the fact that she was still using one hand to cradle her wounded head—before stomping petulantly the rest of the way to the wall opposite from the victor's side. Apparently the tiny agony-inducer was much more devastated by the destruction I had caused her pride and her undefeated reputation than about any physical injuries. Recalling that even a severe concussion would probably be resolved in a matter of minutes thanks to vampire healing, I suddenly understood why she felt that way. Pain would swiftly dissipate, but with our perfect memories, humiliation would not.

This moment of her defeat was burned into every member of the guard's minds forever.

Once Jane was settled into a disgruntled position against the wall where the defeated stood, arms crossed furiously and her whole frame shaking with a barely contained rage, the other victors immediately began to negotiate sparring pairs amongst themselves. They took the addition of Aro and Renata into account, but pointed ignoring the possibility of anyone fighting with me.

As Corin and Vera quickly broke from the group to fight one another, Chen gleefully taunted Caius into following in suit, and the others hurried to pair off immediately, not wanting to be left behind and consequently forced to fight myself. Aro's breathtaking marble face twisted into a subtle frown when he realized that everyone was avoiding me after my uncanny display of strength and mental resistance. Evidently he wasn't too surprised by the outcome—it was only natural to run like hell from an enemy you knew you had little chance of beating—but there was also the pivotal fact that I needed to be trained how to fight so that I could use my inordinate strength to the best of my advantage against others who were similarly powerful.

I couldn't just sit this round out—certainly there had to be some vampires with experience fighting newborns that weren't afraid of me, right?

"Is there anyone else who wishes to face Isabella?" Aro enquired politely, gesturing towards the two remaining victors, Yvonne and Santiago. They stood indecisively, arguing in heated whispers with one another as to who would have the honor of sparring with Aro and who would be forced to combat me after the devastating spectacle with Jane.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as Yvonne finally stepped forward, resolutely declaring her intention to accept me as an attack partner. At least until I remembered her power was highly formidable, and a completely physical gift, which I would be unable to simply nullify with my mental shield.

Suddenly, it began to dawn on me that I might lose, and I froze, casting Aro a glance full of trepidation as if to silently petition him to override her decision and pair me with someone I could more easily beat. Or at least someone who I hadn't just witnessed crush the most physically capable vampire besides myself beneath a gigantic rectangular bolder of lead.

But before I could voice my concerns, the ballerina-like, French vampire saw my sudden hesitation, and it made her cold pink lips contort into a feisty smile. "You scared, newborn?" she taunted in thickly-accented English as she gradually raised her telekinetic hands into a confrontational stance.

Her derisive words seemed to immediately eliminate any compunctions I had about fighting her— _oh man,_ _she was going down!_

That unfamiliar fighting-instinct kicked in again, and my legs rapidly starting into a sprint after this jeering comment of hers. My adrenaline-pulsing arms immediately shot out in front of me as I started running to grab her neck and furiously tear it from her shoulders and a low snarl resonated from my chest.

I was greatly surprised as I approached that the slender, arrogant European girl bizarrely wasn't even attempting to distance herself from my furious advance. She simply stood completely still with her arms twisted out in front of her. And as I raced single-mindedly towards her, I began to believe that victory might be conceivable. Certainly her powers were nigh-impossible to contest with, but as far as I could tell, she hadn't gotten around to using them yet, giving me the rare opportunity to strike her down unhindered by enormous metal obstacles.

A wicked grin split across my face as I made it three-quarters of the way across the floor and Yvonne was still entirely frozen in place, her brows furrowed in deep concentration. As I flexed my eager fingers, ready to bury my hard, manicured nails deep into her unwisely exposed neck, all the pent up wrath I had tried to assuage by breaking things in the dungeons over being made into a monster suddenly broke free of my self-imposed restraints, fueling my drive to win.

Because if I proved today by beating Jane and Yvonne that I was capable of protecting everyone in the upcoming battle, both physically and mentally, then maybe I could finally convince myself that my immortalization had been strictly necessary, and thus my hunger for human blood was justified. For many weeks I had tried to place my faith in Alice, and suppose that her vague description of my essential contribution in June was enough to warrant causing the death of a few innocent people. But without any actual evidence of what made me so special, it was difficult to believe. If I won today, though, using my gift and my strength to emerge victorious—powers which I could only possess as a vampire—then I might be able to stomach the human-slaughtering consequences of my new condition.

And to finally have a suitable reason, something that would let that noxious guilt be expunged from my soul—that would feel so good.

But my dreams of proving the absolute necessity of my bloodthirsty existence were quickly shattered however as I caught the corners of two incredibly huge lead blocks hovering on both sides of me in my peripheral vision. As I raced single-mindedly towards Yvonne, they were astonishingly keeping pace with me as I dashed with hitherto unmatched swiftness across the padded floor. Panicking, I tried redirecting my course. I abruptly turned to run in another direction, and zig-zagged all over the room in evasive patterns, hoping to shake the pursuit of the immense boulders chasing me through the air. But they followed me perfectly, matching my every movement at the behest of Yvonne's outstretched arms.

After a few moments of darting around the room as an inky black blur, the house-sized rectangles began descending threateningly at my sides, until I couldn't turn at all without smacking hard into a vast wall of solid metal. Pushing with all of my might, I tried to dart forward out from between the heavy lead blocks that now hovered only inches above the matted floor, towering some twenty feet on either side. But it was no use—the objects moving at Yvonne's command were sailing through the air too fast for me to gain any headway on them. I was about to try jumping, to spring up out of the narrow gap between the blocks when suddenly, with absolutely no time to react, the smirking vampire clapped both hands together. Her command made both boulders violently collide with me sandwiched tightly between them.

I gasped in pain as the heavy metal crushed against my skin on both sides, and pushed outwards with all of my might with my hands and feet to try and keep the dense walls from squashing me like a bug caught underneath a tire on the road. My desperate efforts were rewarded with the huge sides of the blocks crumpling like tin foil around me. But every time a hearty punch or kick bent the metal out of my way, Yvonne merely pushed the objects in closer, compressing my whole body into an increasingly smaller space until I felt like my innards were about to burst under the intense pressure.

And it was in that moment when I reluctantly realized what I had to do.

Initially I tried to deny it, struggling to wriggle free from my tightening prison, much like Felix had attempted under similar circumstances, unwilling to lose my winning streak so quickly. But as one of my lower ribs snapped loudly as it quickly ran out of room to remain fully extended, I suddenly conceded that my pride was totally irrelevant given the circumstances. So, with a heavy heart, and a nearly breathless torso, I arched my head upwards so that all could hear my plea above the narrowly spaced walls of metal around me.

I cried at the top of my suffocating lungs: " _PIETA!"_

Almost instantaneously the crushing sensation enveloping my entire body vanished and I immediately crumpled to the floor. I heard a two dull _thuds_ as Yvonne launched the two, dented metal blocks back into the far left corner where they posed the least danger to the other pairs of combatants. But as I lied there on the ground, wincing in pain as my broken rib rippled back into place, the rapid reconstruction feeling very much like Vera's healing of my broken arm as a human had, I felt no relief.

My broken bone wasn't really the issue—thankfully, my rib was fully mended in a matter of seconds, making the pain incredibly short-lived—but rather my broken spirit. I had foolishly staked all my hopes of justifying my murderous existence on that one fight, and now that I had lost, I felt like those dreams had been utterly decimated.

Like I was destined to be stuck as inexcusable slaughterer forever.

A part of me wanted to chide myself for being so melodramatic—it wasn't like one defeat irrevocably dictated that I would always lose, and if I wasn't bested at some point, there wouldn't be any room for improvement. My training wouldn't be very effective if I never sparred with anyone capable of placing me in mortal danger. And simply relying on my savage, uncalculated brute strength in order to win wasn't the best plan either, because that was something the other newborns would also possess.

But another part of me wanted instead to weep for those I had already and would later kill for thus-far-unjustifiable reasons. To demand of Alice _precisely_ what I would contribute that necessitated my change. To castigate myself for enjoying wiping the floor with Jane so much. And to scream under all the daunting pressure of being the Volturi's only hope—it was all so much.

I was becoming someone I didn't even recognize. And there was no perceivable way to stop it.

But in the end I did none of those things.

Instead, as Yvonne walked saucily towards the victors' wall, paying me no mind as I sat completely still like a statue in precisely the same spot where I had fallen, I merely stared off into space, my harried, whirlwind of self-chastising thoughts causing my crystal-clear vision to haze over. A few of the guards paused every now and again to look skeptically in my direction, evidently perplexed by my decision to simply gaze at nothing in particular. But unlike at the conclusion of my first fight, none of them were frozen aghast at the outcome—they simply noted my smack-down defeat with brief, intrigued glances, too embroiled in their own sparring matches to really devote the matter a lot of consideration.

Aro was also among those who spared a fleeting look in my direction, his expression an unreplicatable combination of mild dissatisfaction towards my defeat and an analytical understanding of my limits, before he had rapidly twisted back into his duel with Santiago. It was obvious from his meaningful gaze that in some ways the indomitable man had expected more from me, but it was also equally as evident that he wasn't terribly surprised at the outcome—for all my boundless strength, there was only so much I could accomplish when I was brand new to the merciless field of combat.

Realizing that Aro was right about my limits, I brusquely shook my negativity aside, unwilling to slip back into another depressive, self-loathing phase—I had already endured more than my fair share of that, thank you very much—and I diverted my focus to Aro's fight. I found his duel with Santiago to be especially riveting since the younger vampire, despite the substantial disparity in muscle mass between him and his lean challenger, was evidently losing to Aro's millennially honed combat skills, and superior tactics.

Santiago clearly was no novice when it came to battle strategy—he demonstrated as much with a few well executed sneak attacks. But whenever he darted behind Aro and moved to seize the shorter vampire's black-haired head before the powerful coven leader noticed his change of position, Aro was always one step ahead of him, pivoting on his heels to face his enemy with a ballerina-like grace and succeeding in a grab of his own.

I think that the scene of their confrontation was particularly impressive in part because it was so unexpected. Certainly Aro had displayed some measure of physical dominance when he had bodily prevented Caius from making me dinner and threatened to kill Edward in the throne room. And I knew from Carlisle's memories that he was far from lacking in speed and agility. But what struck me the most as I watched him launch a swift, hardy punch into Santiago's chest was the sheer power the ancient vampire exuded.

The enormous, dusky bronze-skinned vampire soared helplessly through the air from the impact of Aro's pale fist, and as Aro briefly settled back into an authoritative stance before bolting with vicious intent toward his falling comrade, I gaped in unmasked amazement. The structure of Aro's coven and his regular fancy attire had me convinced—and probably the vast majority of the rest of the supernatural world convinced as well—that he was relatively physically weak, confronting only the unresisting. That he surrounded himself with formidable vampires primarily as personal protection from enemies who could easily tear him apart in a one-on-one fight.

But as Aro lunged, his lean muscles rippling powerfully beneath his taut leathery battle clothes as he reached for his grounded opponent, I realized that the extravagantly embroidered robes he usually wore, the delegation of fighting and punishment primarily to others, and his apparent reluctance to leave the castle whenever unnecessary were all part of an elaborate front to make his enemies _think_ he was weak, when that couldn't be further from the truth.

And as I watched Santiago shriek out a shaky " _Pieta_!" with a look of petrified horror on his face just moments before Aro's outstretched hands would have torn his screaming head from his massive shoulders, I wondered if his lack of resistance to my assault on his person earlier had been genuine—that I had actually incapacitated a man of such unbelievable power—or if he simply had decided not to fight me off out of some warped sense of curtesy.

There was only one way to find out.


	3. Chapter 2: Administrivia

**AN: So Bella is decent at fighting when she's suitably angry, but she doesn't have any idea what she's doing when that emotion isn't strong enough or replaced by something else (fear, insecurity, etc.). Also her attacks are like, super obvious-which is why Yvonne won, because she used her powers more tactfully than Bella. She'll get better eventually, but she's still really unaccustomed to her new body and its capabilities.**

* * *

 **Chapter Two: Administrivia**

It was only three seconds after Santiago had cried "mercy" that I decided to make my move. While Aro sauntered away from Santiago's ever-so-slightly trembling form, moving with long, daunting strides over the thickly padded floors towards the far wall to stand beside the other victors of this round, I suddenly clambered to my feet, and nearly sprinted after him before I thought better of it. It wouldn't prove anything to land my first blow against him unawares—I had already done that in the hallway before—so instead I staunchly held my ground and sharply called after him, causing the formidable man to slowly spin around to face me with a curious expression.

"Is something the matter, dear Isabella?" he enquired politely, with a slight tinge of bewilderment coloring his placid tone. His curious eyes swept analytically up my figure, searching for anything amiss, but found nothing obvious.

As he continued to scan me, I adopted a confrontational stance, spreading my legs to match my shoulder-width and hunkering down slightly, as I had seen numerous athletes do on television. That way, Aro would immediately know what I wanted.

"Fight me," I found myself boldly declaring, stretching my fingers threateningly before balling them into tight fists at my sides.

Aro's eyebrows raised considerably upon hearing my imperious statement and seeing my overt enthusiasm to contend with him again. And I was surprised as a slight air of chilly disapproval began emanating from his being rather than the warm flush of exuberant pride and appreciation I had been expecting. He wasn't unanimously upset—some portion of him was pleased and offered an infinitesimal smirk. But based on the whirlpool of emotions flickering across his face he wasn't sure exactly what to feel, and the way his dark eyes kept straying warily towards the sparring pairs in our vicinity told me that he was concerned about the perceptions of his fellow covenmates.

Irritably, I waited for all of his inner voices to come to a consensus and verbally respond. After thirty-seconds he was still subtly fidgeting with his dexterous hands, and glancing surreptitiously over his shoulder as if to verify that no one else was watching him too closely.

And his lack of a definitive reaction infuriated me.

"What's the matter? I said I wanted you to _fight me_!" I hissed confrontationally, raising my fists to the level of my eyes, prepared to strike him should he suddenly dart in my direction.

I didn't understand what on earth he was so worried about—was he actually so spineless that he was afraid to lose in front of everyone else to someone as laughably novice as me? He hadn't seemed too concerned earlier when I wiped the floor… erm, _wall_ … with him, and Renata had stood witness then. Was she different from the rest somehow? Was there someone in particular that would lose faith in him if they were to witness him cry mercy?

I couldn't imagine it—having seen his battle with Santiago, I was fairly assured that Aro's strength and reputation would emerge intact, no matter what I managed to do or not do to him in the next hour. My defeat by Yvonne certainly hadn't alleviated all the trepidation the others held towards contesting with me, and Aro probably had literally millions more victories to bolster his standing which would hardly be tarnished by one measly loss against an unfairly stronger opponent. But perhaps I was still missing something.

"You said you wanted to test my natural fighting abilities, right?" I barked indignantly, jarring Aro from his internal musings.

He narrowed his eyes critically in my direction, an action I noticed out of the corner of my eye was mirrored by Alice. At least until her current battle-partner, Chelsea, swiped her lethal hands dangerously close to the clairvoyant pixie's face, forcing Alice to look away in order to avoid decapitation.

Thinking back, Alice's wariness should have been enough to stop me from jeering Aro on any further—I'd never seen her visibly concerned about anything that turned out spectacular for all involved. But the growing anger I was feeling for being essentially ignored by him was starting to make logical deductions like this impossible.

"What better way to test me then to fight me yourself?!" I advocated with a furious edge to my voice.

Our little spat gradually began to garner an audience, a few faces turning to watch us amidst their fights, or pausing them altogether to stare. Aro slowly raised a single hand in caution, silently warning me not to proceed.

I looked at the way he mentally appraised his guard's reactions with disgust—he really was worried about what they thought. "Or are you too afraid?" I challenged in a condescending tone, selected precisely for its ability to infuriate him.

A small part of my atrophying human-self warned me that this was the mother of all stupid ideas—brazenly antagonizing one of the most formidable men in the room was _not_ a good self-preservation tactic. But my new vampire self, the wild, fearless one who was starting to win possession of my body, was eager for a good fight. Preferably with an enemy wouldn't unfairly cower behind hulking props, or rely on the crutch of a debilitating gift which I nullified, but with one who would actually fight me on even terms, face-to-face.

As my acerbic words reached his ears, Aro's alabaster face hardened from a look of relatively soft reproach into a deeply affronted expression—an obvious facial cue that indicated that I ought to speak to him with a greater degree of respect, at least amidst present company.

"Isabella, please do refrain from speaking impolitely," came his stern warning, uttered such coldness that I nearly shivered in my boots. "There are better ways to propose a challenge," he added, offering no examples of what that might look like before he went on: "But in all cases, I must decline." The icy, forbidding tenor of his voice left no room for amicable negotiation. Nor did the dark, wary stares of several guard members who had paused in the middle of their fighting behind him. Both of these ought to have been clear indications that I shouldn't press the issue.

Maybe he was right and I should just go fight someone else…

But in my rash anger and somewhat obtuse stubbornness, I ignored these signs, parting my lips to make another demand that fight me, and abandoning all my inhibitions when it came to propriety of speech. "I will accept _no_ refusals!" I screamed ferociously, loud enough for the entire castle to hear, punctuating my angry demand with a guttural roar and hunkering further into a combative position. " _Fight me, dammit_!"

Immediately an oppressive, piercing silence fell over the room, every appendage that had still been lunging, scratching, or biting came to a screeching halt and almost every flawlessly arched eyebrow in the room disappeared into it's owner's hairline. Felix and Demetri both hissed disapprovingly, and instantly began to surge forward as if to violently "correct" my insurrection against their leader, before they were halted with a single hand raised quickly by Aro. At first his completely unexplained gesture of ceasefire was perplexing—clearly I had overstepped my bounds and some form of "discipline" was probably in order. I quickly realized, though, from his vindictive facial expression, with no absence of horror, that Aro intended to exact my punishment himself.

Frantically I tried to think of something, anything I could say to convince him to take an alternate route. However before a single apologetic syllable could slip from my traitorous mouth, Aro suddenly dashed towards me with murderous intent, his whole body tensed into hard, furious lines. As he sped like a flash of lightning in my direction, I couldn't decide whether or not he was protesting or acquiescing my command to fight. But it hardly mattered anyway, because his livid, fiery eyes, and his muscles surging with all the wrath of a war god scared the crap out of me, triggering every instinct to flee.

Again I stupidly ignored the feeling, determined to face him head-on. Thanks to the nightmare-inducing vibe he was generating, I was trembling in fear once he got close enough to fight, which considerably disrupted my concentration. I launched two quaking fists in the general vicinity of his face as he closed the space between us, the first of which embarrassingly sailed completely over his head, and the second of which connected squarely with his left cheek. His head jerked to his right (my left) slightly upon impact, and I started to hear the beginnings of a fracturing jaw, which was incredibly satisfactory to witness. But his powerful hands quickly grappled and pushed back my fist after a few moments, allowing him to escape without any visible damage, or more than hairline broken bones.

This time, he was prepared for me, and was determined not to be taken by surprise.

I tried throwing a pair of punches at him again as his jaw swiftly healed. But my moves were too obvious, lacking all subterfuge, and so he already had his hands in position to deftly block them before they even brushed his immaculate skin.

As we kept fighting, it became very evident that I was still much faster and stronger than him, judging by his preemptive moves and the incredible "kickback" that my blows had when he stopped them. But thousands of years of combat practice had taught him to anticipate my inexpert flailings rather than simply react, and to use my own strength against me.

When I finally lunged to try and bite savagely into his neck, (as seemed perfectly natural to do at the time, thanks to my underdeveloped fighting instincts), I threw my entire weight into the spring, hoping to pin him beneath me with my arms so he couldn't escape. But that ended up being a particularly bad idea as Aro simply flitted unphasedly to the side a few meters as soon as my feet left the mat, causing me to crash hard into the floor where he had stood mere seconds before.

I laid humiliatingly immobilized against the padding, which had torn open upon impact, for a few moments. My body was crumpled on the floor and my head was throbbing and spinning. And as I fought the vertigo that enveloped me, I mused that I probably was now feeling exactly like Aro had when I'd chucked him against a wall, minus the fractured spinal column, of course. A broken rib was one thing—intensely painful, but a mild nuisance really, in terms of how long it took to heal. But a concussion apparently wasn't something you hopped right back up from, especially one caused by a newborn. It was so disorienting, flickering white spots everywhere and a shrill ringing sound assaulting my ears that wouldn't let up, and it hurt like hell.

Maybe because it was an injury to the brain—the organ responsible for rapidly healing the rest of the body—that it was so flooring.

Or maybe I was just _that_ strong.

There was no way of knowing, and at the moment, the reason my head-trauma caused so much lasting pain was irrelevant—I had much more important things to think about.

After a few seconds of lying on the ground, clutching my head where it had collided unforgivingly with the floor and screaming in pain, I felt ten, powerful, slender fingers fasten securely around my wrists. These foreign hands hauled me forcibly to my feet, earning a frightened yelp from myself as I learned they were Aro's dangerous fingers contracting tightly around my marble-like flesh. I teetered and trembled as he held me upright, the training room and all of its avidly staring occupants still swimming in my vision for a minute, and when the pounding ache in my head finally stopped I nearly had a heart attack.

I gulped audibly as Aro stared reprovingly at me, his dark red eyes seething with displeasure, and shivered involuntarily as his aristocratic nose barely brushed mine. Unlike every other time when I had gushed over him as he drew near, there was nothing comforting about his proximity now. His presence this time was utterly petrifying—his entire frame, though slight compared to others, radiated massive power. His normally sweet, intoxicating aroma was spiced with the zesty scent of aggression. I felt like an ant cowering beneath a gardener's boot. Even calling for mercy was senseless at this point—if he had desired it, I would already be dead.

"It seems I have been remiss in teaching you proper coven etiquette," Aro breathed quietly against my cheek, in a jarringly tender voice so low I was certain that only I could hear it over the commotion around us.

I was momentarily confused that he did not make his chastisement more public until I realized as he quietly held me there, that this was a thousand times worse than a bellowed reprimand. Somehow his unforgiving gaze managed to penetrate me on a far deeper level than yelling ever could. It chilled me to the very core and made me profoundly uncomfortable with the thought of causing his disapproval ever again. It was terrifying.

"You must understand that not everyone here was raised believing the same things about authority figures that you do," he continued, again in that perplexingly compassionate tone, which was completely at odds with everything else about him right now.

I struggled to see the relevance in his statement.

"From your perspective, though some people hold positions of power as a result of greater skill, they have no greater value than any other individual," he explained in a terse whisper. Furtively, he kept glancing towards the rest of the guard as they gradually began to notice us. And his body language indicated that he was mostly concerned about their perceptions of him, and not _primarily_ personally upset with me for my demeanor towards him.

"Your authorities are elected," he went on, ignoring my bewildered expression as I wondered what on earth the history of government had to do with anything. Instead, he opted to grip my pale wrists even tighter and grit his teeth angrily as part of the act. "They are subject to the votes of the people, servants to the people. And if they do not comply with the people's wishes, they are considered scoundrels. So this colors your expectations of me as a coven leader."

Suddenly, all the pieces were starting to come together. _Oh, so **that** is what this is all about. _

"The rest of guard," he said, his dark eyes flickering once more over the expanse of frozen fighting pairs, "excepting Alice, of course, are more accustomed to monarchy than democracy—and as such they expect and respond best to authority that behaves like a king, rather than a president. Specifically, authority that is firm, austere, and intolerant of any insubordination."

I gave a slow nod—I was starting to understand his point, I think. I had treated him derisively because he wasn't giving me what I wanted (a fight). And while he seemed to comprehend where I was coming from, and wasn't actually _too_ upset with me, my behavior towards him was completely inappropriate from a medieval mindset.

"Presuming to order around a king is an unacceptable behavior," Aro confirmed my suspicions in a downy whisper. "And if I were to submit to your demands and not correct your disobedience…?" he left the question unanswered.

But I completely comprehended what he meant—from their perspective, any leader whose right to reign was contingent on sucking up to his underlings would be perceived as weak and unworthy of following. A "proper" leader ought to be capable of subduing all dissenters under his feet. And so if Aro were to publicly 'surrender to my authority' as it would appear to the other coven members, then the others, who had sworn allegiance to him on account of his unmatched power would desert him, and complete anarchy would ensue.

I didn't need Aro to be uncompromising to see him as a capable leader—he was right, my 21st century perception of authority meant that I actually preferred a leader who was more relatable, more willing to negotiate and listen to those "beneath" him. But to the others, democracy was an alien concept. Respect was earned by being the toughest and most ambitious one around, not bestowed because of agreement on hot-button political topics. Your opinions about how the supernatural community ought to be run didn't matter if you couldn't enforce them.

"In private of course, you may speak your mind. But it is uncouth to do so before the others. In their eyes, it is sullying for me to be treated like everyone else. I have already been forced to reassert myself in their eyes because of dear Alice's refusal in March to let me obtain her thoughts immediately," he offered secretively, murmuring the words against the smooth skin of my ear, so that I felt them more than heard them.

"Surely, you understand that we cannot afford to lose their support now?" he inquired and again I bobbed my head obediently, trying to play the part of Aro's subordinate, now that I understood his complicated reasons for treating me as he was now.

Each vampire in the coven needed a different sort of leader, and Aro, being the manipulative mastermind that he was, was trying to be all of those people at once—simultaneously intimidating and unassuming, compassionate and merciless, uncompromising and flexible.

No wonder he seemed totally bi-polar at times. It was a ridiculous balancing act he had going on here, and I was deeply impressed that he was able to navigate it so masterfully—clearly he was perfectly cut out to rule the world. There was no way I could doubt that now.

"Affording me a title of respect is one way you could appease them," Aro whispered. The grimace on his face told me this was not his favorite solution and that he himself was not overly fond of titles. "But if that makes you uncomfortable, you needn't worry about it. Not every member does so and I do not require it. Simply phrase all future requests of myself as suggestions, not demands, and do try to comply with my desires with as little resistance as possible, at least until you've established yourself here," he concluded gently before sweeping back a few inches, and releasing his stranglehold on my hesitant fists.

Instinctively I ducked my head in subservience—the animal inside me seemed to immediately understand that submission to this much more powerful creature was my best chance at survival. Intellectually, though, I despised and rejected the idea of submitting to anyone like this.

"Are you going to punish me…?" I weakly asked, completely understanding that if he did, that it would be to save face. I tried to add some kind of honorific address at the end of my sentence to further convey my willingness to comply, like _sir_ or _master_ but the words were completely foreign to my egalitarian tongue. So Inquickly swallowed them before they rolled out inelegantly from unpracticed lips.

Aro breathed audibly in disbelief, and unlike our whispered words before, this was loud enough for everyone to hear, "Oh good heavens, no."

He looked like the entire concept of harming one who was obviously very committed to the cause was utterly repugnant to him—his disgusted expression seemed to convey that he only saw it fit to physically punish the willfully mutinous. He seemed to believe his verbal chastisement was plenty punishment enough for a mere misunderstanding. The skeptical gazes of Caius and Jane suggested otherwise, but the remainder of the guard seemed to accept Aro's verdict easily, and reverted all of their attention back to their respective battles.

"That would be counterproductive, in your case, I think."

Caius scoffed under his breath, clearly in disagreement with Aro's lenient rulership, but his protest was abruptly silenced with a dark, penetrating glare.

"It is perfectly understandable that you are somewhat _wild_ at this particular stage," Aro offered as the excuse for my behavior which allowed him to withhold a more severe sentence.

Caius frowned uncomfortably as his opinions were so easily dismissed.

"But you are an intelligent one, Isabella, and will learn our ways quickly," Aro finished with a meaningful look in his maroon eyes as they flickered between his white-haired co-ruler and myself, indicating that although his words meant one thing on the surface, they held deeper implications as well.

I nodded in agreement with his vocalized statement (that I would learn to treat Aro with more respect in public for the sake of the others) as well as with his unspoken insinuation that I was expected to hurry up and get over my human-slaughtering angst as soon as possible so that I got along better with the rest of the guard. At least, that's the only other thing I could think of that he could mean by "learn our ways quickly." Judging from how the other members had surveyed me with critical eyes in the hallways ever since my first meal, but seemed to be much more at ease in Alice's presence despite her equally recent arrival, their mistrust towards me for being sympathetic towards humanity was probably hampering our group cohesion.

I guess their philosophy was that the coven that bites together fights together?

"Um… so…" I wasn't really sure how to phrase the question that suddenly arose in my mind, especially now that Aro seemed to expect a greater measure of deference than before. How exactly did one go about politely enquiring information from a king without sounding completely sappy and overdone?.

"Go on, Isabella," Aro prompted softly, all traces of his former ire with me now completely absent.

His calmed expression gave me the courage I needed to speak, despite the handful of disapproving looks that got shot my way for daring to ask anything of their master after so thoroughly disgracing him.

"Alice says that it is my gift that will be the most useful in the fight… so shouldn't I be training with that also?" I asked, remaining conscientious of Aro's relative position of authority and thus speaking in a non-confrontational tone.

Some leather rustled slightly as a few Volturi members standing against either wall relaxed once they realized my question was rather innocuous. Those who had not yet determined a victor among their respective pairs quickly returned to fighting, finding the topic of our discussion to hold little interest.

"Practice projecting it onto others, maybe?" I suggested openly. I left Aro the option of utterly counteracting my idea if he found it undesirable, though I really thought that he ought to listen. I mean, that was why I was here, right? To use my shield to save everyone?

"Of course," Aro easily agreed. "But with how rapidly you learned to displace your shield from yourself while you were still human, I am not so much concerned about that as I am your physical abilities."

I began to open my mouth to argue with his reasoning, believing myself that learning to use my shield ought to be our highest priority if it was so pivotal to our success. But Aro quickly cut me off before I was able to articulate any actual words.

"Do not dismay, we _will_ test them," he affirmed resolutely with placating hands. "But if your presence is as vital as Alice's visions signify, that it is absolutely imperative that you learn to protect yourself effectively first. Our enemies will likely realize you are protecting us and seek to eliminate you as soon as possible," he revealed with a grave look in his dark eyes.

I swallowed thickly and nodded my head in comprehension.

If the newborns or their leader noticed that I was the one responsible for protecting the minds of the Volturi, and the Volturi's mental exposure somehow placed them in greater physical danger (as Alice had implied earlier, despite the fact that I had no idea why), then I would be the first to die.

"So who should I fight next?" was the next logical thing to ask.

Just as the words had slipped casually off my nervous pink tongue, however, Aro suddenly spun in a dramatic circle to his right. His burgundy eyes narrowed towards the large lead entrance doors, behind which he and I both heard a pair of unsteady, high-heeled footsteps approaching. Suddenly our conversation became utterly irrelevant as Aro and I critically listened to the reverberant clacking sounds growing closer.

At first, I thought they belonged to one of the wives. After a second of pondering the possibility, though, I conceded that it was impossible for those wavering footfalls to belong to any immortal. Especially not one who had thousands of years of practice walking around in all sorts of diverse footwear, as both Sulpicia and Athenodora definitely did. Which meant that the figure moving towards the door, offering a feeble knock against the heavy, impenetrable metal when she reached it, was human—probably a member of the Volturi's staff.

I hadn't any clue why she was senseless enough to think it appropriate to interrupt a horde of adrenaline-spiked vampires who had nearly completely abandoned themselves to their instincts—it was painfully obvious in my mind that such an action could only end badly. The room instantly silenced, every guard in the room freezing mid-strike in response to her gentle rapping against the door, and Heidi unexpectedly broke from her fight to answer the human's knock. I internally chided this human for being so foolish.

But I was jarred from my reproving thoughts as a waft of indescribably delicious air assaulted my senses. I had never before smelt anything near as appetizing—the scent was quite bitter and salty a bit like green olives, a flavor I had detested as a human. But my palate had significantly changed since then, evidently preferring sharper flavors over sweet ones, and all human food paled in comparison. Even the blood of my first victim had not smelled like this. Certainly it had been intoxicating, maddening, even. But the aroma taunting me now far transcended that—it was almost as mouthwatering as the faint traces of my human scent clinging to my old possessions was, like this woman's blood was the same song as mine, albeit transposed into another key.

Had I been somewhat more coherent, I might have wondered if this woman was my singer. In the moment though, I was too lost in the act of deeply inhaling the amazing aroma to care. I sighed loudly as the flavor tantalized my nostrils, and was surprised and disturbed as the lovely olfactory sensation was accompanied by a sudden, sharp, dry pain in my throat.

 _Thirsty,_ the monster inside me supplied in explanation of the sudden scratchy sensation.

I found myself clumsily tripping over my own feet to stagger fearfully away from the substance that made me lose all sanity. I didn't want to kill another person—that had gone over terribly last time, and just thinking about it still made me sick.

 _You haven't fed in nearly two months, and if you continue to avoid humans, the thirst will only grow worse until it becomes completely unbearable_ the rational part of me chipped in, supporting the primal argument of my instincts. I cursed under my breath as I was forced to acknowledge that it was right—I couldn't evade the grim realities of being immortal forever.

Eventually, my neck would become so inflamed with hunger that I would go completely insane.

But my body didn't want to wait that long—not when the possibility of glorious satisfaction was within my reach.

 _Go… hunt… **drink** , _the beast urged again.

I gasped, both in excitement and panic as thick, sticky droplets of venom began to drip incessantly from my teeth. The flurry of conflicting feelings welling up inside me was dizzying—I felt paradoxically terrified of the notion of hurting the helpless woman on the other side of the imposing double-doors and itchingly anxious to eat. And as I warred with myself, setting my fading compassionate heart against my fierce instincts and the weight of the world bearing down on my shoulders I lurched forwards and backwards, uncertain as to whether to answer the call of my scorching thirst or run the hell away from it.

 _Remember how good it tasted last time?_ my memory supplied as another argument for the choice to kill.

Involuntarily, I moaned as the full sensate experience of my first feed washed over me again, focusing especially on the climactic finish, when my whole body had flared to life after I had drank my fill. It had been delicious, I was forced to admit, and based on the potency of her scent through the thick walls and doors, I could only imagine that imbibing from this woman's veins would be exquisite.

It was decided… _Dinner, here I come._

It only took a fraction of a second for Aro to notice my hungry decision to dart savagely towards the large double doors, venom leaking from the corners of my mouth in thin trails behind me as I ran. But this time rather than encouraging me to obey my instincts, his startled expression seemed to convey that he vehemently disapproved. Another moment passed during which all Aro could do was raise his eyebrows in panic, since I was too fast for him to react properly, before he suddenly ran after me. He rushed across the room as speedily as his supernaturally strong legs could carry him with his lean, muscular arms outstretched in front of him as if intent on wrestling me into a restraining grip.

But of course there was no way he could catch me—I was _way_ too fast.

I was so single-minded in my movements, however, making an obvious beeline for the door that I never considered that he wasn't the only vampire going to try and stop me. So I was completely unprepared when Felix, and Santiago, the two physically strongest guards decided to block my path without having to be ordered to as soon as they saw Aro's feet breaking into a sprint. Their sudden placement in the way of me and my food stunned me for a bit, before I attempted to sidestep around them, or bash their faces in if they resisted. However, my momentary hesitation as they moved to halt my progress over the dark red padded floors was long enough to give Aro the opportunity to seize me from behind.

As his powerful arms grappled with my thinner, but ultimately stronger appendages, I fought back with a viciousness that surprised me— _nothing gets between me and my meal!_ my inner vampire insisted fierily.

I scratched my nails ruinously over his jacket sleeves, shredding the durable fabric easily and even carved small grooves from his wrists to his elbows. I had never felt so irate in my entire life—the anger I felt was boiling; murderous. All because someone dared to try and stop me from following my natural inclination to kill.

Aro winced as my diamond-hard fingernails cut jagged pinkish lines into his crystalline skin. But to my dismay he continued in his efforts to subdue me, ignoring the tiny sparkling bits of his flesh that were flaking to the floor in favor of tightening his lock around my head.

Maddened by the intoxicating scent of human blood, so very potent in my sensitive nostrils, I began kicking repeatedly with deadly force into his shins in addition to the scratching of his arms, trusting that I could eventually injure him enough to escape.

It didn't take long—after three kicks I heard the telltale _crack_ of breaking bone.

A hair-raising howl left his lips as his right tibia shattered, and he immediately bent in natural response to cradle it, releasing me from his grip in the process—just as I had hoped. But unlike last time when I had broken him, he didn't stay down for long. After only a few seconds laying crumpled on the ground, Aro leapt expertly to his feet and motioned for Santiago and Felix to aid in the effort of subduing me. Clearly, he was not dazed enough by the fracture to be out of commission, which lent evidence towards the theory that head injuries were much more severe (Aro's back had not been the only surface of his body to smack the far wall when I had thrown him).

Before I could properly dash out of the way, the hulking pair grabbed my savage form by the arm. Aro wrapped his thin fingers securely around my legs so that I couldn't kick anyone again, and together the trio forcibly began hauling me back towards the far wall.

I thrashed wildly in their unbreaking grips, snarling and jerking like a feral lion resisting a net of iron chains. Ultimately, though, their combined strength was too much for me, and the three of them ended up being successful in their attempts to pin me against the padded wall furthest from the entrance doors.

I lashed out viciously at the three daunting figures preventing me from tearing across the room and eagerly ripping into the hot human flesh that was practically calling my name. And as I kicked and gashed every pair of eyes—all of them surprisingly the same dark burgundy shade as my own—was locked firmly on me.

Had I not been so completely lost in my hunger, which now overwhelmed my whole being since I knew _precisely_ what it would feel like to have it satisfied, I might have felt self-conscious underneath their cold, piercing all I knew as I wriggled and growled like an animal was the gnawing fire in my esophagus. I had ignored the early warning signs—the slight tickles of heat I had felt there these last couple of days—because I hadn't wanted to face what that meant. But now that human blood was within my reach, instead of safely hidden outside of my sensory perception somewhere else in the castle, I wanted nothing more than to devour it.

That's what my kind was designed to do, after all.

As venom slipped in long rivulets down my chin, it's unique, wet scent permeating the adrenaline-hazed air, I noticed with a twisted interest that the smell automatically triggered increased venom production in the others. Guards whose hunger had previously been so well in check soon had mouths sticky with saliva. Even Aro's mouth, which was set into a stoic hard line, began to glisten with the unmistakable sheen of venom after a while, and I was stunned that something as subtle as the smell of my saliva could have such a profound effect on the man when his pheromones were so much stronger than mine. Maybe because I was so new, and my hunger was so powerful and raw, I was releasing another kind of smell too—like Jane's fear had a unique scent. Because just as her fear had awakened a drive to fight, my hunger seemed to trigger an equally instinctive response: a desire to join the feast.

I didn't have any time to explore that theory any further, though, because just as suddenly as Aro's traitorous mouth had started producing venom, he swallowed it and steeled himself against whatever curious influence I had over him. Then, the knocking against the door grew a little more insistent, like the human responsible was becoming somewhat impatient.

Realizing that the foolish human wouldn't take the hint and just disappear, Aro opened his mouth to address Heidi. She stood frozen with her hand against one of the heavy round ring-handles, uncertain as to whether to open it, as she had initially intended, or to leave it shut as I thrashed thirstily in the three men's arms.

"Go ahead, Heidi," Aro instructed.

Caius' pale lips split to reveal a nightmare-inducing, venomous smile—clearly the sadistic brother hoped that Aro intended to feed his unsuspecting human servant to me, and felt privileged to have a prime spot from which to view the bloody feast. But Aro's soft shake of his head in his brother's direction seemed to indicate that the black-haired vampire had other plans.

Caius frowned petulantly, like a child who had gotten his favorite toy revoked, and snorted his disapproval which I echoed with an angry guttural growl before he rolled his eyes and stormed up behind Heidi.

"Regrettably, it seems Aro does not want this one to be eaten just yet," Caius said caustically in Heidi's ear, before he stepped back from her a few feet. He sounded extremely put out.

But it was clear from the way Heidi's face brightened and her hands more assuredly gripped the handle that Aro's decision to work to preserve this human's life a while longer was a relief to her, rather than a burden.

With a final, wary glance back at me as I struggled fruitlessly against the wall of strong arms confining me, Heidi slowly pulled the door open. Then her feminine, leather-clad muscles tensed in preparation to defend the human behind it if necessary.

Heidi's deliberate motions revealed a statuesque, chocolate-skinned woman with glossy black hair dressed in a tight black sheath dress which hugged her understated curves and peep-toed stilettos. This woman was carrying a small stack of crisp white papers—freshly printed by the warm, inky smell of them. She was also very beautiful, just like the other woman, Gianna.

But I was again completely stunned by how severely her impressive looks paled in comparison with Heidi's. Every infinitesimal pore on the human's face was magnified an hundred fold in my eagle-like vision, making her skin seemed coarse and splotchy next to Heidi's alabaster perfection. And her hair, with all the product she dedicated to making it gleam and curl like a moviestar, had nothing on Heidi's luster.

For a few moments, the woman's dark brown eyes flickered with painstaking slowness around the room, hesitantly taking in the scene. Twenty or so vampires were completely frozen in the middle of their respective fights or against the walls, and then there was me, snarling and gnashing my teeth as I fought to break free from the three forcibly holding me back.

All of our unblinking, burgundy eyes bored into her as she looked, and for several seconds she simply stood, utterly immobilized in astonishment and fear, before she seemed to abruptly recall what she had come here for. Thrusting the stack of papers towards Heidi with a frantic glance in my direction, the girl quickly explained in frenzied Italian why she had come, all the while taking a few, wobbly steps backwards into the hallway to place some distance between her and me. Obviously, she understood precisely the kind of danger she was in being in my presence.

 _That's right little human. Accept your rightful place beneath me on the food chain!_ The beast inwardly sang.

Heidi methodically flipped through the papers offered to her, thoroughly scanning each item presented to her on the smooth, thin surfaces. During her perusal of the papers' contents, the human held her breath and not-so-surreptitiously crossed her fingers behind her back.

After a few minutes, the gorgeous brunette unexpectedly raised her head, and gave a verbal approval of some sort, which caused the anxious human to exhale loudly in relief. I didn't understand any of the rest of their clipped conversation—frustratingly, it seemed that the language of operations here was Italian, and Aro hadn't bothered to get me tutored yet—but it was succinct and polite, and, probably in part because of my continued attempts to escape and sink my teeth into the human's throat, it ended as quickly as possible.

The monster inside me was initially furious when the human, Ebele, I had learned her name, was shooed away with an errant flick of Heidi's wrist. I felt jilted of my rightful food she scampered away as fast as she possibly could, abandoning her hazardous footwear on the stone floors in favor of running for her life.

But as her salty, adrenaline-spiced scent gradually slipped beyond the perception of my sensitive nose, leaving only the musty training room air and the smell of slight apprehensiveness emanating from the guard behind, I began to feel appalled with myself for trying to hurt her. Not so long ago, on my eighteenth birthday to be precise, I had been in a very similar position—the human trapped in a room full of hungry vampires, one of which had lunged for my throat and had to be restrained by the others.

But today, it seemed I had switched roles. Now I was playing the part of the uncontrollable newcomer, rather than the terrified, about-to-be-eaten woman.

Today was markedly different in some other ways from then, of course—Ebele _knew_ without a doubt that I wanted to kill her, when, in my naivety, I hadn't really believed that Jasper would ever actually sink his teeth into my neck. But that only made me feel even worse—when Jasper had thirstily lunged for me then, I had been too dazed to panic. This woman had been absolutely petrified with fear.

And I had _liked_ it.

Suddenly feeling crushed under the burden of guilt that was far too heavy to bear, I collapsed, limp and emotionally defeated in the arms of my restrainers, and ceased all efforts to break free from their tenacious grasps. Felix and Santiago regarded my abrupt decision to relent with deep skepticism, but Aro seemed to take a different perspective, having faith that my acquiescence was genuine and silently directed with subtle gestures that they should let me go.

Immediately, Felix and Santiago complied with Aro's unspoken command. I could tell from their tensed shoulders and slightly bent knees, though, that they were prepared to spring into action at a fractionary moment's notice, if I made any unexpected movements towards the door. This fact made both Aro and I frown slightly.

At that precise moment, however, we were prevented from commenting on recent events as Heidi dramatically spun in her scuffed leather lace-up boots to face the crowd. "I just approved the final list," she announced with a confident air of authority, clearly addressing every vampire present with her cryptic declaration.

I didn't understand what on earth she was getting at— _a list of what?_ I wondered.

But it seemed that I was alone in my confusion. Almost every head in the room, surprisingly including Alice, responded to her statement by immediately bobbing in comprehension. A few faces cracked wide, creepy, gleaming smiles and Chen even dramatically pumped a fist in excitement. But I was left utterly in the dark about what had them all so suddenly excited.

"We dine tonight," Heidi suddenly added, and a sinking feeling slowly started to overtake my uneasy intestines. It sounded like the list had something to do with whatever covert methods the gorgeous "fisher" used to lure our innocent prey to the fortress unawares.

"Excellent!" Aro exclaimed happily, clapping his hands together in excitement. "May I see the selection?"

At Aro's request Heidi walked swiftly across the room, her curvaceous form swaying tantalizingly with every movement. When she reached Aro's side, she politely extended the unwrinkled stack of papers in his direction.

Aro hastily swiped from her hands with a ravenous eagerness. His anxious dark eyes scoured their contents eagerly for a few minutes before he gently returned them to her with a look of appreciative awe glittering in the depths of his eyes.

Aro reached out to tenderly stroke Heidi's jaw. "You impress me with your work, as always," he complimented in a reverential tone.

I seethed with a murderous envy as he lavished praise on the gorgeous woman, at least until I realized with great astonishment that Heidi wasn't enjoying his flattery all. Instead her smoldering gaze seemed to be saying "piss off, Aro, I'm tired of your games", though she would never dare to voice such insubordinate things aloud.

Aro evidently knew what she was thinking anyway, thanks to his gift. But he merely chuckled as he drew back, more amused by her feisty spirit than upset by her inward lack of respect.

"I look forward to when you return," Aro said graciously, despite Heidi's infinitesimal huff of exasperation.

His words bewildered me—Heidi was leaving us and then coming back? Where was she going?

"The turnout this month looks especially scrumptious," he murmured almost to himself. His sly pink tongue barely left the confines of his lips momentarily to lick away a drop or two of venom that had slipped out of his mouth.

Suddenly it all made sense—where Heidi was going, what was on the list, the human's involvement—and as soon as I grasped the entire picture, I choked in disgust and disbelief.

"You have your secretaries help you eat people?" I spat accusatorily with gritted teeth and tightly balled fists, earning me the harsh stares of every vampire present in the room. I balked at the cruelty of such a thing—vampires killing for food was one thing, but forcing humans to hunt their own? That was totally deranged on so many levels.

Aro's blissfully anticipating visage abruptly turned sour as he directed his gaze back towards me.

Heidi decided it was high time for her to get going, evidently wanting to avoid being part of the conversation, and so she took off, papers clutched fiercely to her ample chest as she dashed out of the training room and disappeared down the spiral stairwell.

It was right at that moment that I recalled I was supposed to speak more respectfully towards Aro now. The icy, disapproving glares I was getting from the leather-clad guard, and the way that Alice's dark red eyes flickered nervously between her new master and myself as though anticipating some kind of altercation between us to erupt reminded me of that. But although his posture and facial expression conveyed his silent displeasure with my biting indictment, he decided, much to Jane's annoyance, against any punishment. He must have figured my newborn "wildness" was enough of an excuse, so he merely sighed.

"Isabella…" he began patiently, lowering his hands in a "calm-down" gesture. "All of my secretaries work for me of their own choosing," he assured me in a gentle, sincere tone—though his eyes had a sad, faraway look to them that implied his "job offers" were not entirely without manipulation. "Everything I expected of them was clearly outlined long before I revealed my true nature, and all of these women were presented ample opportunity to reject my offer and continue with their lives without further interruption from my guard."

My brows furrowed quizzically. "But how could you tell them what you expected without telling them you were a vampire?" I kind of felt like that particular fact was central to the entire operation that Aro ran here. As far as I could tell, the secretaries operated primarily as liaisons: mediators between the Volturi and the human world. Without knowing that the Volturi ate people and wanted to keep that fact private from the rest of the human world, how could those women have any idea what they would be doing?

Aro's lips curled into a conspiratal smirk. "They knew that I led a group comprised of ruthless killers, and that I expected them to be accomplices in some ways to our 'crimes' and keep them hidden from the greater world, but that is all," he explained matter-of-factly.

His remarks reminded me that much of the truth _could_ be told without installing the "change or die" ultimatum, so long as he neglected to say the v-word. Or told humans what we ate.

"Is that not an apt enough description?" he asked, sweeping one hand in a broad gesture around the room in reference to the entire guard.

I nodded hesitantly—I guess that was enough, if Aro truly said as much. Though it surprised me that anyone sane would agree to work for such an obviously malicious organization unless coerced, or threatened somehow (Aro was basically setting himself up to look like a mafia boss).

"You don't threaten them, if they refuse?" I probed, vastly uncomfortable with the idea of Aro putting on a criminal pretense and terrifying potential candidates into submission—though I couldn't imagine him holding a gun to anyone's head, firearms were so not his style.

Jane's pouty lips curled upwards ever so slightly in response to my question, at first I thought because she was employed to inflict pain on these poor women until they relented into Aro's Machiavellian service—an idea which outraged and horrified me—until her face suddenly twisted into an acidic frown. Clearly she _wanted_ to serve Aro in such a manner, but for whatever reason, it wasn't part of the program.

"No." The single word was uttered distastefully from Aro's thin lips, like the notion of doing such a thing was an unforgiveable evil. "That occupation requires women with unswerving loyalty, and those motivated entirely by fear tend to lack that vital characteristic," he provided in explanation for his staunch refusal to employ Jane's or anyone else's' supernatural talents to compel these humans into submission. "I have found that offering luxuries is a much more effective route of persuasion."

 _Oh. Of course._ Threatening someone's life, or the lives of their family members if they didn't comply was probably the one surefire way to make all your employees eager to involve public authorities—giving them untold riches however… made them complicit and personally invested in the Volturi's illegal activities.

"The salaries I offer them are beyond their wildest dreams, which of course makes them hesitant to dissent," he contributed with a soft, though utterly disturbing smile, confirming my suspicions exactly.

"But why involve them in the…" I swallowed, still struggling to voice the uncomfortable words. " _feeding process_?"

I completely failed to see why their contribution in that area was necessary—Heidi was the bait, and we were the recipients. So what role did these unfortunate, though thoroughly pampered women play, exactly?

"It was actually Francesca's idea," Aro revealed unexpectedly.

Clearly he was referencing one of his secretaries whom I had yet to meet. And my eyebrows nearly rocketed off of my face at the insinuation that any human had requested to assist with such a grisly task.

"With modern technology and robust record keeping, healthy humans are increasingly difficult to erase without the larger world being aware of it," Aro explained academically. "The malnourished and violently ill living in third world countries, of course, are hardly missed," he said completely unemotionally. "But their blood is regrettably low in nutritional value. We would have to consume so many of them in order to be satisfied," he said sadly with a degree of exasperation in his tone. Like he thought so many deaths would not only be disheartening, but he also thought that hauling that many people here, or traveling there on a regular basis without arousing any suspicion would be a nuisance.

It astonished me that in addition to his contorted moral reservations about killing that he was so pragmatic about all of this.

"It would be a waste," he said finally.

I winced as my hyper-active imagination vividly painted the scene he was speaking of in my mind: that of the Volturi guard descending hungrily and utterly without mercy on the unsuspecting inhabitants of some small, remote village in Africa, intent on consuming all of its inhabitants.

Having watched them feed in the throne room once, I knew that half the guard dined monthly, and the other half bi-monthly, and that two months' worth of humans amounted to roughly eighty people, forty per "batch". But from Aro's statements it seemed I could infer that all those humans had been doing relatively well health-wise. Switching to a diet of sick, starving people could possibly double that number, which, given the fact that Aro placed value on human life in his own bizarre way, was unacceptable in his eyes.

Sensing that my questions regarding this cruel task undertaken by his human servants were still not completely answered, Aro went on, despite a few covert eye-rolls and a round of subtle, disapprovingly shaking heads.

"Francesca decided, and the others agreed to employ their familiarity with the modern human world to help us draft up a list of healthy, and simultaneously societally invisible people for Heidi to target each month," he concluded, clasping his hands together, to signal that he wished this conversation to definitively be over—but I wasn't done just yet.

"Why would she do that?" I prodded malcontentedly—I found it impossible to believe that this woman had offered such unsettling services and her companions had quickly followed suit simply out of the goodness (badness?) of their hearts. There had to be a catch somewhere.

Aro sighed once again, and after a reluctant pause he explained in a solemn voice, "The understanding is, of course, that if Heidi fails to bring enough food, they are the alternative."

I gulped as I understood the darker meanings of his words. So that was why Francesca volunteered her help—in the end she was just like the man I had consumed on my first day as a vampire. She was desperate to do anything in order to survive, even if it meant betraying her own kind.

Not entirely motivated by fear, my ass.

Maybe self-preservation wasn't a concern when she initially was inducted, being reliably convinced that the Volturi would leave her well enough alone if she refused, and being tantalizingly promised a life of unbelievable lavishness if she agreed. But clearly her priorities had changed.

"But now is not the time to be discussing such trivial matters," Aro suddenly supplied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "We ought to convene in the dining hall in preparation for Heidi's return," he said with perfect politeness, though it was clear from the immediate, unquestioning response of his guard that his suggestion was a kingly command and not a mere request.

The other vampires took this as their cue to file out of the room, moving with surprising order in a single line out of the open entrance doors. The rubbery soles of their boots echoed softly as they strode swiftly over the ancient stone floors and headed enthusiastically down the stairs. Alice was among them, seamlessly blending into the crowd of leather and cropped or up-done hair. But watching her saunter out of sight with the same subtly thrilled expression on her face as the rest of the Volturi made me feel like I had been kicked in the stomach—it was still so jarring, so _wrong_ that she looked forward to participating in something so horrific.

Inwardly I scoffed at Aro's attempts to dress up the occasion in such a civilized manner by calling the place I had unofficially dubbed the "throne room" the "dining hall" instead. The title was utterly too formal for what occurred there, in my opinion: I would have called it the "feeding pit", if asked to grace such a dastardly location with a name that described its use.

But all of my unvocalized protests were silenced when my throat chose that moment to spasm with a stabbing, white-hot pain. I grimaced as I realized that I too, looked forward to my next meal, despite knowing all too well the inevitable human suffering it entailed.

Realizing that the room had emptied except for himself and me, Aro paused just before taking his first step off of the padded floor onto the stony ground beyond the double doors. He said questioningly, with his back turned to me, "Isabella?"

I swallowed as I realized that he intended me to follow, and initially my feet jerked forward to comply. But every fiber of my dying human heart warred violently with the idea, forcing me to stop dead in my tracks and reconsider my options.

The sudden cessation of my footfalls apparently confused Aro enough to warrant investigation, for he summarily turned around and flickered his dark eyes over my frozen form. His finely arched brows furrowed as he struggled to understand the situation and I detected a small lurch in his movements, particularly in his hands. It was as though he considered the possibility of using his power to obtain a better grasp of the reasons for my trepidation, before he recalled that such an attempt would be futile and maintained his distance.

I shook my head back and forth to convey that I had no intention of following him—trying to convince myself as much as him. "I… I'm not hungry." I lied weakly, though even I had to admit it was totally pathetic to do so. My thirst had already been well established a few minutes ago when I had barreled savagely towards Ebele. I had been fully planning on ripping excitedly through her buttery skin and gorging myself on her uniquely delicious blood.

"Nonsense. You are most obviously famished," Aro succinctly and very effectively shot down my argument. His aristocratic features unexpectedly softened and he extended an arm in my direction, as if providing me the opportunity to latch on to it while we traveled. "I will accompany you," he stated, as though my acquiescence in this matter was already decided, and inclined his head slightly towards the exit, silently urging me to hurry up.

Numbly, after imagining all the harsh, critical faces that would glare at me if I chose to decline and realizing that my thirst wasn't going to magically disappear, I decided there was nothing I could do but agree with him. Slowly, I crossed the considerable distance between us and tentatively took his arm.

In a flash, he whisked me away down the narrow spiral staircase, through the long, torchlit hallway, until we reached the hidden panel in the wall where the "dining hall" was tucked secretively away, hidden from all who might come to the premises to investigate.


	4. Chapter 3: Empathy

**AN:** **Poor Bella—newborn instincts are strong, and yes Ebele is Bella's singer, which is a lot of the reason she wasn't able to have as much resistance as when she first fed. Aro has no idea of course—he just thinks Bella was hungry—but who knows what he might do when he finds out?**

 **Oh, and I'd love to hear what you think of this story so far! Shameless plug: reviews are awesome!**

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Empathy**

I felt dazed and disoriented when Aro finally detangled our entwined arms and flitted forward to take a seat in the center throne, because the entire room looked radically different from how I remembered it appearing two months prior, and without Aro's steady guidance I worried that I might get lost. The curved walls and depressed floor were the same shape, and the holes carved just below the coffered ceiling of the large stone turret cast thin, bright rectangles onto the floor just as before. But the sun also scattered a sea of rainbow rays along the lengthy path its light took to reach the ground, glittering distractingly on every side, and filling the entire room with a subtle warm glow. Every surface I recalled being dim and dull in my human memory was now luminous and reflective, so much so that almost hurt my eyes, and made me feel like I had been transported to an alien world.

As I hesitantly stepped forward towards the side of the room, where Alice and a few dark figures had congregated, I paused as I stepped into one of the thin rectangles of light, catching a sudden, new glinting in the corner of my eye. As I inclined my head downwards, I found it was the skin of my own hand glittering like a thousand tiny diamonds were embedded in its surface. I blinked in shock twice before squinting and twisting my fingers around experimentally to make sure they were still mine as I beheld the unusual sight.

Sure I'd caught my skin glittering a few times before, in the bright white lights of my personal bathroom, but it was nothing like what I saw now that my hand was exposed to direct sunlight. The bathroom lights had caused my skin to issue a faint glimmer, but now I was sparkling up a storm, throwing dazzling rainbow light everywhere.

After a few seconds of staring at myself, I instinctively recoiled from the light, drawing my hand safely back into the darkness, where it belonged. Now I clearly understood why the Volturi preferred to keep most of their fortress as minimally lit as possible, only allowing unadulterated sunlight to pour into the most secretive of places. It hadn't made sense when I was human—the dark was scary and uncomfortable. But as a vampire darkness wasn't an issue, given our superior eyesight, and light like this was actually dangerous, a threat to our very existence. If humanity saw me like this, they would immediately know I was different, and that observation would lead them to eventually discover the truth that we were their predators.

And that was a truth that humanity would not accept, but would instead seek to destroy us in order to falsify it.

I shuddered involuntarily as I remembered Alice's description of what they would do if they discovered we existed, _if humanity were to learn of our existence, they would make their best attempts to wipe all of us off the face of the earth,_ she had predicted ominously. _In their eyes… we are monsters. They will show us no mercy._

I really hoped that I could be successful in preventing them from ever knowing, because if I couldn't, we were all royally screwed.

As I settled uneasily beside Alice against the curving stone walls, I endeavored to ignore the burning in my neck, which showed no signs of abating, and watched with a detached sort of interest as the non-combatant vampires began filtering into the room after Felix. First behind the hulking guard came Marcus, looking as bored as ever and clad in set of robes just as finely tailored and embroidered as his previous ensemble, though dyed a deep blood red, surprisingly much lighter than his ravenous eyes. Sulpicia and Athenodora trailed in not far behind, animatedly discussing something amusing as they walked, their clear soprano voices occasionally being interrupted by bell-like peals of laughter. And last came Titania and Lucretia, skipping happily with clasped hands and bearing eerily wide, gleaming grins as they moved in perfect sync with each other.

I was somewhat taken aback as I realized that the twins' irises were the same brilliant ruby-red they had been during our first encounter, unlike every other vampire in this room whose eyes were at least a shady scarlet, and most were burgundy or darker. Knowing for myself that bloodthirst didn't even begin to be noticeable until the eyes dimmed a shade or two beyond that, I was curious as to why they were invited to the feast this time. From Aro's mind during Carlisle's stay in Volterra I had learned those who possessed mental powers encountered only marginally more frequent thirst than those without powers at all, and that they typically only fed here every other month, hunting outside of the city limits on the rare occasion that their thirst arose between Heidi's "batches".

However, it did not appear that Titania and Lucretia were feeding on the same schedule as their father. Aro's eyes were a threatening maroon today, which I assumed meant that he had not fed during the batch Heidi had brought in April (one which I had staunchly avoided being in the castle for as soon as I had caught wind that it was to occur). But the little girls' eyes suggested that they had. Which would mean they were eating monthly, instead of bi-monthly even though they clearly didn't _need_ to for some unknowable reason.

Perhaps it had to do something with the fact that they shared their meals? I considered analytically.

In that moment my mind unhelpfully dredged up the murky, though still thoroughly traumatizing human memory I had of watching them feed on that poor, old, Latino man, and I immediately felt a thick, sludgy fluid rising in my throat (the vampiric equivalent of bile, I supposed). Acting completely out of habit, I inwardly chastised myself for thinking so academically and impassively about something so atrocious—as a compassionate person I ought not to treat eating others as casual activity. But I was stunned to find that there was no real ire behind the reprimand. Certainly I didn't look forward to the more unsettling aspects of killing to eat, (no, those still nauseated me very much) but I think I was finally moving to the bargaining stage of grief, trying to exchange the more monstrous parts of drinking human blood with appeals to the greater good.

It didn't always work—sometimes I slipped back into the burgeoning anger or crushing depression because of it—but it was progress, I guess, and it allowed me to think in more practical terms about the numerous costs and great benefits of different feeding schedules. And after pondering the matter, I decided that despite being fifty years old, the girls were still very young, and keeping them well fed, rather than allowing them to thirst and possibly act rashly as a result, was probably an intelligent move on Aro's part.

Especially if he wanted his secretaries and maids to survive long enough to be useful to him. I was intensely skeptical, judging on the meal I had witnessed the pair heartily devour in the throne room in March, that Aro's adorable daughters were capable of much restraint.

I shivered as I watched gruesome scene replay in my mind once again. The bestial side of me was thrilled with the image of the cherubic little girls' faces splattered in blood and eager to replicate the look on my complexion. But even my thirst-twisted heart couldn't forget how they had both completely ignored their victim's tears and pathetic attempts to fight them off, and how Titania had spat a sticky glob of human flesh onto the floor utterly without emotion. It was obvious that they didn't revel in their victim's pain the way Jane and Caius did, nor did they put in any effort to circumvent it like their father—it was simply immaterial to them.

Like they weren't even really aware it was happening.

I blanched at the notion of feeling such a way myself—sadism was one thing, but total ignorance was almost worse somehow. To not even consider that their victims might feel anything at all was the epitome of apathy, the ultimate display of contempt. And it stunned me when I realized that I would much rather revel in another's pain than dismiss it.

I strongly objected to the idea of doing either, but if I were forced to choose between becoming an unfeeling ice queen and a passionate pain-inflictor in order to reconcile my violent eating habits with my personality, I would chose the latter, because at least that way I would acknowledge that human feelings had some value. The way the twins ate, it was like humans were mashed potatoes—and I refused to denigrate the intelligent species I had once been a proud member of by treating them that way.

But just as I was beginning to try and convince myself that acknowledging my prey's pain as I killed humans to eat would be a desirable state of being, rather than a wretched one, however, I saw a flash of red hair out of the corner of my eye which made all of my muscles contract defensively.

 _Victoria_ , I thought, flexing my marble-esque fingers in preparation to fight as I rapidly twisted around to face my opponent—at least until I realized that the tuft of curly red I had seen actually belonged to a scrawny, short male vampire I didn't recognize who was late coming in the door behind Aro's offspring. I was a little confused as to who he was, not recognizing him from my human memories, or from Aro's, until he broke into a run upon seeing Corin and enthusiastically enveloped her in a loving embrace.

So he was the non-combatant mate I had heard somewhat about. Just looking at him explained his status completely—there was no way in my mind that his bony little arms could ever win in a fight, and without possessing any supernatural gifts to counteract his physical uselessness, he would only prove to be a hindrance in battle. Knowing very little about Corin's power, I couldn't say precisely why Aro saw fit to include her and her mate in his coven. I had an inkling Aro used Corin to make Chelsea happy with her allotment, since Alice had explained Corin could "make one content with their situation" and Chelsea was the only one immune to her own relationship-manipulating powers, but there could be other reasons as well.

I was quickly jerked out of my tactical musings though, when Alice unexpectedly began to bombard me with a litany of intrusive questions regarding my adjustment to immortality. Initially, I tried to redirect the conversation toward the grave topic of how exactly I was expected to protect everyone in the upcoming battle (a concept I felt like had been rather poorly explained). Though we quickly moved on to other matters as I realized that the vagueness of her visions left her just about as confused as I was on that front.

We talked for close to an hour about various other serious things, such as whether or not I had touched any of my old human possessions yet (the answer was no), whether I had contacted Charlie or Renée (another no), and how confident I felt in controlling my strength (not very much at all) before the conversation took an unexpected turn.

"So do you think you'll be alright today?" Alice asked carefully with obvious concern reflecting in her dark eyes which shone as a reminder of the oft-forgotten fact that she really did care about me like her sister, even though she easily got caught up in the policing the future most of the time.

"Aro didn't hurt me… none of them did," I explained, trying to assuage her sudden worry, twisting my wrists and neck around so that she could clearly see that my resilient flesh bore no visible marks from having been bodily restrained with such incredible force earlier.

Alice's perfect rose-red lips soured into a small frown. "That's not what I meant," she clarified with a gentle shake of her spiky-haired head. "I meant do you think you'll be alright feeding… you know…" she hesitated, searching for the appropriately delicate words. "…from prey that's still alive. Twitching, and all that," she finished, with a demonstrative wiggle of one hand that made me want to be sick.

Okay, maybe not so sensitive—but Alice couldn't remember her human life, so maybe I ought to cut her some slack.

"…Oh God, I don't know," I admitted, covering my mouth with one hand so I didn't throw up as my mind vividly conjured up the scenario Alice had so candidly described. I curled the other hand tightly around my thirst-racked throat. "But it's pointless to back out now," I conceded with a heavy sigh, logically realizing that to postpone my lunch any longer would probably be incredibly foolish to attempt. "So I guess I'll just have to see how it goes and hope I don't hate myself for it later," I declared sourly, with a defeated shrug before crossing my arms hatefully over my chest and glowering acidly at nothing in particular.

"You don't have to hate yourself for it…" Alice countered hesitantly, softly, reaching out with her little pale fingers to try and pat me comfortingly on the back.

But I didn't want her comfort—she didn't understand what I was feeling at all. "I would hate myself even more if I didn't…" I rebutted through gritted teeth, trailing off as I clumsily swatted away her "helping" hands.

Alice's face warped into a confused expression, tapped one finger lightly against her pouty red lips and tilted her head slightly to the left. "That doesn't make a lot of sense."

I snarled viciously at Alice's unemotional tone and her ridiculous expectation that I completely divorce all negative feelings from such a gory activity. "No it doesn't, but that's where I'm at okay?!" I bellowed a bit too loudly, drawing the attention of almost every vampire in the room, who looked on our argument with mistrustful, disapproving eyes.

Alice panicked a bit upon seeing everyone looking this way—it wouldn't do for me to look any more reluctant to participate in the upcoming feast than necessary—and quickly shushed me in order to save face. "Shhh… I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

I shook my head both in disbelief that their opinions mattered more than mine and signaled that I wanted this conversation to be over. Alice immediately shut up, leaving us to stand awkwardly in tense silence, listening to the other vampires conversing animatedly with one another around us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Alice was guiltily wringing her petite hands, as if she really regretted speaking so insensitively towards me. But I was too furious with her, too terrified of what I was invariably going to do when Heidi returned with our… _food_ and too uncertain in my abilities to live up to everyone's expectations of me in Seattle to acknowledge her silent apology.

Instead I tried to tune in my acute ears to the low, murmured conversation between Aro and his brothers as they sat atop their lavish, ebony thrones. Amidst all the ambient chatter, though, it was impossible to make out more than a few words.

"Newborn" and "insubordination" were articulated clearly by Caius, which gave me a fairly good impression that I was the topic of their discussion. But Marcus' lips were impossible to read on the rare occasion that he decided to contribute anything to the conversation. And Aro seemed to be deliberately making the wrong shapes with his mouth, as if he knew I was watching. I tried looking at them only out of my peripheral, so that Aro might believe that I had lost interest and thus stop distorting his lips into weird shapes as he spoke so I could grasp the gist of what he was saying, but to no avail. Considerably vexed by his ability to see through my pathetic attempt to be covert, I was about to genuinely give up after trying for at least a half-hour, when we were all unexpectedly interrupted.

There was a quiet knock, a gentle rapping against the exterior wall several feet away, followed by the almost imperceptible sound of stealthy footsteps, then another knock somewhat closer, and more footsteps, as though whoever was roaming around outside was searching for the secret entrance to this room, but wasn't quite sure exactly where to find it and thus had to listen to the echo in order to determine where it was. All bodies in this room, including mine stiffened as the soft strikes against the outside paneling grew increasingly near, and at first I wondered why Aro didn't send someone out there to tell his secretary to cut it out. At least until I caught a whiff of that person's unfamiliar, inhuman, and distinctly male, scent.

The person trying to find this room wasn't one of Aro's employees, nor was it any member of the guard—I honestly doubted it possible for any of them to forget where this room was, and as far as I could tell, every person comprising the Volturi coven except Heidi was already in here—but some other, unknown vampire, whose purpose in looking for us couldn't be known.

Suddenly, the reason the door to this room was concealed made a lot more sense—apparently there _were_ others who knew how to navigate through the labyrinthine Volturi fortress, and a few flimsy iron locks and human receptionists were hardly enough to stop them.

Realizing at the same time that it could be one of the Volturi's many enemies—Carlisle's memories had revealed that the austere coven was not universally liked—Aro and I both frantically turned to Alice, silently petitioning her with desperate dark eyes to reveal who was coming for us. Neither of us expected her response, however. The adorable petite vampire's delicately sculpted brows raised, her painted lips opened in an "o" of surprise and she momentarily looked horrified, before suddenly her face erupted into a brilliant smile.

"He's here!" She chirped happily, bouncing up and down on her heels and clapping her hands together like a child on their long-awaited birthday. "Open the door!"

Aro's face reflected my confusion—Alice hadn't specified _who_ was here. And every other chalky face in the room eyed her with a skepticism that suggested they feared she might have betrayed them by leading someone dangerous here to try and overthrow them.

In the moment that followed Alice's ambiguous remark however, the intruder suddenly found the panel which concealed the plain wooden entrance door. He slid it hastily aside and unhesitatingly turned the antique brass handle.

In response, Jane and Caius immediately adopted confrontational stances, with several other combatant vampires following in suit. Titania and Lucretia darted up the small dais steps to cower behind their father's throne, clutching the intricately carved ebony legs with their chubby little fingers. Sulpicia and Athenodora exchanged worried glances, before Felix, Santiago a few other large guards rushed to surround them in a protective circle. Corin clung desperately onto her skinny, non-combative mate, as if terrified that he might disappear, and Marcus simply watched the scene unfold around with the same unimpassioned boredom as usual.

I didn't know what to feel—Alice was still beaming like an idiot, which I hoped meant good things, and not that we were all about to die. But everyone else looked ready to pounce as soon as whoever it was finally crossed the threshold into forbidden territory.

My legs tensed in preparation to bolt, either towards or away from the enemy as the entrance door cracked open. But as a black jean clad leg inserted itself into the room, and my eyes trailed all the way up the encroaching figure, I stumbled backwards in shock. Aro immediately issued a silent ceasefire of sorts with a gradual lowering of his hands that caused every muscle in the room to relax slightly.

"Dearest Jasper, what brings you here?" Aro enquired companionably.

Aro rose fluidly from his throne and glided with unnatural ease down the dais steps and across the circular floor until he was only a few feet away from the unexpectedly familiar face. His movements were flawless, but they looked somewhat odd in his scuffed leathery sparring gear, his completely shredded jacket sleeves particularly ruining the elegant image he was trying to put up.

Jasper shifted somewhat nervously in his signature cowboy boots, before he confidently squared his turtleneck-bearing shoulders. He sought Alice out in the crowd and spoke with a subtle southern accent once he found her, "Sir, I've come to be with my lady, of course," he said crossing one arm over his chest and giving the slightest of bows as a gesture of respect and good faith, a sign of submission to the Volturi's authority.

Aro seemed to accept this, given the way the concerned edge lurking beneath his more overt facial expression disappeared.

"Ah yes, Alice did tell me you would come eventually," Aro recalled aloud with a soft smile, before eagerly extending an upturned palm in the younger, Texan vampire's direction "May I?" the elder immortal asked politely, clearly excited with the prospect of obtaining his lifetime of thoughts.

After earning a shallow nod of approval from Alice, Jasper reluctantly complied. He slipped his hand gradually atop Aro's and frowned slightly as the tactile telepath intimately entwined their fingers and bent over the connection of skin.

The entire room was silent for several minutes as Aro poured over Jasper's thoughts. But at least it was a rather comfortable silence, seeing as the guard had unanimously decided that Jasper must no longer pose a significant threat, and had dispersed from their battle positions. Even Aro's twin daughters had quietly slinked down the steps to stand beside their mother when Aro's head suddenly jerked upwards.

His dark burgundy eyes stared deeply into Jasper's obsidian irises. "I see that you are rather thirsty," Aro remarked in a cool, feathery voice as his hand abruptly detached from the blonde's. His teeth added a slight hiss to the "s" in _thirsty_ and his tongue wetted his lips with venom after he spoke to punctuate his statement.

Jasper immediately ducked his head in shame, turning his toes inward and avoiding Aro's gaze. This clearly told everyone in the room that he was vastly uncomfortable with the idea of sating his thirst in the manner Aro preferred, much like I still was.

Aro, however, didn't take the hint. "We are about to feed, if you would like to join us…" Aro offered casually, as though it was a courtesy that he extended towards every visitor. Though the shocked looks of several guard members betrayed the truth that it was a much bigger deal than my black-haired coven leader was letting on.

"How do you do it?" Jasper interrupted him with a sharp, pained tone. "You see all of their thoughts before you bite them, don't you?" He continued with an accusatory voice that made Caius' muscles tense, and Aro bristle slightly as though the younger Southern vampire's words were a literal jab in the stomach. "How can you kill when you know them so closely?" Jasper cried out desperately, his voice cracking with sorrow and incomprehension, clearly revealing that he felt some modicum of the same struggle when he fed, and yet it was completely unbearable for him.

Aro's polite façade faltered and his face became heavily overshadowed with a look of lamentation. "It was not always so easy…" he tentatively admitted.

Aro placed a grandfatherly hand on Jasper's shoulder and patted it reassuringly, as Alice had tried to do to me this gesture actually held meaning because unlike the unflappable pixie who'd spent all of about five seconds angsting about killing a human being, Aro knew exactly what Jasper was feeling.

"But it becomes more bearable with time," Aro assured Jasper. He drew the tall, slender blonde into a warm embrace, which was surprisingly unresisted, as he spoke. And it lasted for a few seconds longer than I had ever seen two men hug. Well, except Aro and Carlisle.

When Jasper finally drew back, his dark-purple-rimmed eyes were somewhat less frantic looking.

He asked in a calmer, though still thoroughly incredulous voice. "How can it ever get easier? None of your victims _want_ to die," he said, swallowing thickly.

Jasper blinked rapidly, as though trying to dispel some awful memory that his remarks had unintentionally resurfaced. The hasty flickering of his eyelids made Alice's lips curl into an uncertain frown, as if she didn't quite know the proper response to her mate's distress, but didn't like to see him sad, nonetheless.

But I was more curious to hear Aro's response than worried about Jasper—I had already known from his own confession in Forks that feeding on humans had always been a traumatic experience for him, and didn't really expect that to change any time soon.

"That is true," Aro acknowledged with a sorrowful nod of his head, before his mood rapidly shifted to one of maniacal glee. "But that does not mean I cannot bring myself to enjoy it," he revealed. A cruel smirk besmirched his perfect lips and his eyes glittered with satisfaction as he referenced the heady experience of drinking human blood.

Jasper frowned slightly and glanced warily back towards Alice, his eyes clearly saying "you really work for this lunatic now?" before he reverted his unconvinced gaze towards Aro, waiting for him to continue in his explanation of how he managed to revel in rather than regret his meals.

Aro cast a fleeting glance towards Sulpicia, before he thrust out a finger in the direction of his twin daughters huddled at her side. He beckoned them with it to come to him.

"Shall I have my daughters show you how I accomplish this?"

Jasper momentarily looked stunned—more out of a sense that he wasn't worthy of such an honor than simple ignorance of what Aro's daughters could do—before his curiosity won him over in the end and he slowly nodded.

At Jasper's slight inclination of his head, the twins darted forward, their luxurious, Victorian-era dresses rustling around them before they abruptly stopped beside their father and immediately began arranging themselves in the familiar formation they had used to share memories with me earlier. Titania quickly took her father's lowered palm and seized one of her sister's hands, before Lucretia reached out gradually towards Jasper, waiting for him to accept her diminutive hand. After a few nearly untraceable moments of nervous hesitation, Jasper took a leap of faith and grasped Lucretia's tiny fingers amid his own much larger ones and summarily was transported into some unknown portion of Aro's litany of memories.

It was quite some time—fifteen minutes, maybe a half hour—before Aro broke the chain, and Jasper looked up at him in shock and reverential awe once he had swirled back into reality. Clearly whatever Aro had shown the civil-war era vampire blew his mind. But also judging on the way Jasper pursed his lips and refused to comment aloud on what he had seen with a somewhat embarrassed expression, I gaged that it was intensely personal—that Aro had graciously entrusted Jasper with some of his most profound secrets and trusted him to keep them.

Of course if Aro had shown Jasper what I thought—a slew of his feedings—I wasn't surprised. Drinking human blood was an orgasmic experience, and to feel that from someone else's perspective was probably _almost_ as intimate as reading someone's thoughts in the bedroom.

Thankfully the only memory Aro had shared with me where human blood was consumed was when he had brought Carlisle back to life—which was plenty awkward enough to have eternally embedded in my mind on its own. But to feel what Aro had felt _every single_ _time_ he had eaten, or even just ten or twenty of such experiences and to have that become an irrevocable part of you—that was something else.

"Do you understand now, my friend?" Aro asked considerately, after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.

Japser looked like he objected to the term "friend", but he nodded just the same. "I understand, sir," he affirmed with solid determination in his slightly accented voice,

Jasper squared his shoulders in a regimental sort of way as he spoke as another visual indication of his acceptance of Aro's authority. The action perplexed me, until I realized that it put everyone else in the room at ease, and that perhaps I ought to learn something from Jasper about deference to my "military commander" because it was a foreign concept to me that I royally sucked at.

"However…" Jasper began hesitantly, his suddenly guilty expression combined with his wavy blonde locks reminding me instantly of Carlisle. "…with my gift, I feel all the emotions in the room… not just one," he explained in a ragged voice to Aro, who responded with a short, solemn nod, as if he already knew. "Every human brought here will be terrified!" Jasper panicked, cringing and clutching his chest fiercely like he was in physical pain while his black eyes grew wide, wild with grief and terror.

I flinched instinctively in response to Jasper's obvious agony, and Aro too looked moved by Jasper's pain. He floated forward to tenderly place both of his hands on the taller vampire's shoulders and stroke them reassuringly.

"Unfortunately yes," Aro conceded sadly, before his expression brightened and a venomy grin suddenly cracked across his face. "…But every vampire will be delighted," he reminded Jasper in chilly whisper which sent shivers down my spine. The cacophous symphony of pain and pleasure that was about to happen here must be quite the experience for an empath like Jasper—I wondered if he would be able to stomach it.

I had enough reservations about _myself_ getting through today guilt-free, but Jasper had it _far_ worse.

"Will you agree to join us?" Aro probed curiously, and it struck me as he extended his hand cordially towards Jasper that he was asking more than whether or not Alice's mate wanted to participate in this one meal. No, he was also asking whether Jasper wanted to join the Volturi.

Miraculously, Jasper seemed to comprehend the deeper implications of Aro's statement, and after a fleeting glance down towards the gleaming slivery chain hanging from Aro's neck and disappearing into his leather jacket, which both of us knew carried the sigil of the Volturi, he firmly declared: "Yes, I will join you, sir."

"Marvelous!" Aro exclaimed, his eager hands dancing around his head animatedly in excitement, causing the ribbon-like strips of his ruined sleeves to swish back and forth. "You will make an excellent addition to the guard," he appraised.

Aro steepled his thin fingers together in contemplation, as though pondering precisely which position on his tactically arranged chessboard Alice's mate ought to occupy. "Such a unique power…" He looked skyward in appreciation the same way he had when he had marveled about my powers the last time I had stood in this room, suddenly making me feel leagues less special.

 _Did Aro flatter all of his potential candidates like this?_ I wondered bitterly.

"You would not mind utilizing it in our favor?" Aro asked, though it was evident from my perspective that it wasn't really a question—this was Aro's faux-polite way of commanding Jasper to commit all of his time and talents to the service of the Volturi.

Of course, Alice must have prepared him significantly for this event (which of course she had, given that he was able to find the secret entrance without any assistance) and so Jasper wasn't completely floored by Aro's manipulations the way I often was. He was completely prepared to respond to them appropriately.

"I figured you would expect as much," Jasper said evenly. Though his nearly gritted teeth betrayed his underlying distaste for Aro's technically-honest, but often still deceptive maneuverings.

Then his cold, hollow, pitch black eyes swerved to land on Alice, warming only marginally. "…And Alice wants me here, so I'll do whatever I must to stay," he continued, finishing with what sounded like an exasperated huff—a signal of great annoyance that boggled my mind. Alice had always insisted that Jasper would eventually join of his own volition, though it looked more like he felt compelled to be here, rather than convinced it was in his best interest.

Aro looked ever-so-slightly apologetic, as if he fully understood Jasper's motives—which, I suppose he now did, having read his thoughts. The ancient smiled sheepishly, a small, close-lipped affair. "Of course."

"But master…" a weak protest suddenly sliced through the musty air, which upon whirling to face it, I discovered belonged to Chelsea. Her flawless Greek features reflected considerable worry, as though she felt Jasper's induction would threaten her critical position as the lynchpin of Aro's organization.

"Do not worry Chelsea, his powers do not invalidate my need for yours," Aro intoned melodically, directly addressing her fears.

He chose, in that moment to exert a small measure of the potent force of his pheromones. The powerful scent of seemed to calm her, and made me nearly lose my footing, despite being on the opposite side of the room. His aged intoxicants were like a fine wine, spiked far beyond my infantile capacity to handle, especially when poured out so consciously.

"Jasper is a different sort of empath…" Aro continued in a lulling voice that caused my eyelids to flutter involuntarily shut. "Your power affects deeper emotional connections and lasts even after you have left. He, on the other hand, can only influence the surface feelings of those in his immediate vicinity," he explained coolly, clearly pronouncing that the soon-to-be-former-Cullen's power was in no way a replacement for Chelsea's gift. "Isn't that right, dear Jasper?"

My eyes shot open, curious to see his response.

"That is correct, sir," Jasper curtly confirmed with a sharp bob of his wavy-haired head.

"Might we have a demonstration?" Aro asked kindly, turning upwards and extending his right palm in Jasper's direction in evident expectation that the ravenous, younger vampire comply with his suggestion.

Every pallid face in the room contorted with shock as Jasper resolutely shook his head. Jasper's strong, masculine fingers then darted up to curl around and scratch heartily at his turtle-neck encased throat, unintentionally tearing some of the light, cottony fabric in the process.

"Not right now…" he gasped in a jarringly dry, rasping voice that carried a halfway-concealed strain of dark, self-hatred that I recognized all too well. "I don't have the energy…" he choked out as his excuse.

The pitiful look in his eyes suggested that his thirst was not the only reason he did not wish to comply. Jasper's power was physical and thus expended a lot of the nutrients human blood supplied him with, which would mean that whenever he utilized it, it would increase the number of humans he had to consume. And given how inextricably harrowing the experience of feeding was for the poor man, it was no wonder he was reluctant to force himself to eat more often.

I swallowed thickly as I contemplated the never-ending horror that Jasper's life must be—always agonized by his immortal talents, either directly by the negative emotions of others, or more indirectly by the significant drain his empathetically manipulative gift had on his body. As I struggled to comprehend how he managed to keep himself even remotely sane, I abruptly realized that I was being silly—lamenting the fact that I occasionally had to kill people when it wasn't a huge, personal sacrifice, as it clearly was for Jasper and Aro, was so remarkably selfish. I didn't have a gift like theirs which forced them to feel the pain of their prey and so I had no real reason to despair over my victim's death, other than the typical human excuse that "all lives matter," which wasn't even universally upheld by humans themselves.

No, if I was being honest with myself, I needed to abandon my compunctions about killing to eat right now.

I was being a baby—I needed to toughen up. The world was counting on me.

If I could feed without remorse this time, then everything would be okay. Everyone would survive the upcoming battle, and I could be at peace for the rest of my existence—that was my bargain with the universe.

"Ah, how silly of me!" Aro exclaimed, pressing his splayed fingers dramatically over his unbeating heart as if he was aghast with himself. "After we feed then…" he amended quickly, trailing off with a faraway smile, as though pleasantly reminiscing about his previous victims and vividly imagining his next kill.

I stalwartly fought not to shudder as his stray tongue once again languidly licked across his pale lips— _killing people is okay, killing people is okay, killing people is okay,_ I repeated to myself over and over again, willing myself to believe it, hoping that the inane repetition would drive home the unsavory idea. Of course, no matter how many times I rehashed the psychotic mantra, it didn't simply make it so.

Jasper nodded slowly, numbly in response to Aro's adjusted command, apparently also not entirely convinced that partaking in the Volturi's meal was a good idea. Nonetheless he began struggling valiantly to pry his avidly clawing hands away from his neck and to wait patiently, with wide black eyes and a painfully dry throat for Heidi's return.

Unfortunately it seemed his abilities to mask his pain were all-but-depleted now, and consequently he couldn't seem to dislodge his tenacious fingers, nor prevent a few labored hisses from escaping his parched lips. As he cried out in fiery pain, thick tendrils of venom slipped from his open mouth like a faucet and dribbled gooily down his chin, neck and even spattered somewhat on his chest, revealing the true magnitude of his thirst. To produce that much venom in total absence of human blood… I could only imagine that Jasper was on the brink of starving to death, mere days away from collapsing like Carlisle had a few centuries ago whilst working to create an edible substitute.

Aro seemed to notice this too, and quickly whispered something urgent to his mate, Sulpicia, who immediately fished something small and black out of a small intricately beaded purse. I was stunned to discover it was in fact a smart phone. I had assumed, with how incredibly ancient the Volturi were and how, with the exception of the reception area and a few other isolated rooms, the castle lacked even the basic accommodation of electricity, that Aro was, like most old people I knew, some sort of technophobe.

Caius seemed to eye the device with a degree of trepidation as Aro delicately fingered through his contacts. But the black-haired vampire himself betrayed no obvious signs of discomfort or confusion with the tiny machine—in fact, quite the opposite: Aro seemed to operate the black, beveled rectangle with expert finesse.

Within seconds, Aro had dialed Heidi and was speaking cheerily with her in Italian, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Alice was completely unfazed by his unexpected display of technological prowess, but the sight of such antiquity paired with such modernity was beyond bizarre for me. Something about the picture of a Volturi king chatting on the phone like a teenage girl was very, very wrong—the only thing weirder would be him texting, complete with silly abbreviations like "lol" and emojis.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who was unsettled by the sight—Athenodora looked particularly disturbed and confused as Aro spoke into the object pressed against his ear. And at first I thought her reaction was for similar reasons (that Aro's comfort with technology was so out-of-place with everything else about this ancient fortress). That is, until Alice's face began to assume a similar expression.

As Aro paced languidly about the room, all the while keeping his gaze pointed skyward, rather than settling on any individual, he spoke a few more words that spoken elicited interesting reactions from the guards. I watched, perplexed as dark red eyes throughout the turret room widened to the size of saucers and all looked incredulously towards Jasper in stupefied awe and mild horror.

But it wasn't until Alice suddenly opted to translate, whispering the English version of Aro's words in my ear that I understood their enormous astonishment.

"He's telling Heidi to double the batch," she revealed, her voice trembling ever so slightly over the words as they slipped from her tongue in a fearful tone.

"Double?" I shot back disbelievingly. "What, like bring eighty people here?" I couldn't believe that Aro would make such a ridiculous demand in light of Jasper's arrival—maybe a request for four or five more humans I could understand, given how thirsty he looked. But _forty_ more had to be insane overkill, right?

Alice nodded gravely, a little shaken about the prospect herself, before she turned to face her mate. He stared soulfully into her eyes, silently communicating the extreme severity of his thirst—before he turned back to Aro and dryly chipped in to the conversation: "Ten should suffice, I think…"

My eyebrows nearly lifted off my forehead. _Ten?_ As in… _ten people_? That was like… _twelve gallons_ of human blood. There was no way that Jasper could eat that many—I mean, I had seen Alice eat four two months ago, and Carlisle had consumed eight when Aro had fed him back to life in the 1700s, but still… _ten_? Just how thirsty was he?

But Aro resolutely shook his head as if to indicate that he did not believe that would be enough. "You've never properly sated yourself since you began Carlisle's diet have you?" he enquired aloud even though from his gift he already knew the answer. He cupped the phone against his leather-clad chest to muffle the sound so that Heidi would know he wasn't addressing her with his inquiry.

Reluctantly Jasper shook his head in silent admission that no, he hadn't been completely satisfied since the '50s and thus had over half a century of pent-up thirst to deal with, to which Alice responded with a horrified gasp.

"But you slipped up plenty!" Alice vehemently argued, throwing her hands out wide in front of her, as if to visually demonstrate just how frequently Jasper had "lapsed" back into his natural diet despite his valiant efforts.

Involuntarily I cringed as my all-to-vivid imagination conjured up crystal-clear images of Jasper in a variety of time periods and locations across the United States, mostly in high school, lashing out and murdering someone standing too close to him—I desperately hoped that he had been lucid enough to avoid doing so in front of too many witnesses.

"I thought…" Alice continued with a perplexed voice, before she was rudely interrupted.

"Did you ever once see me with red eyes? I am talking _crimson_ , not reddish orange," Jasper bit back with surprising rancor.

That shut Alice up immediately—apparently she hadn't.

At least, not in reality—though her visions were another matter, and I wondered if perhaps she had gotten confused, mistaking some of her images of the possible future with what had actually happened. I knew that Edward often confused people's deep, inner thoughts for things they had spoken aloud—maybe it wasn't so clear cut in her mind too.

"But if you're that thirsty then how did you make it through the city? It's _crowded_ with humans," Alice rebutted, frantically searching for a hole in her mate's logic so that she could prove his statement false—evidently the idea that he hadn't ever managed to drink enough human blood to revert to full health during his stay with the Cullens disturbed her greatly and I was not precisely sure why. Was it just that she was worried for his health? Or was she more afraid about his control? Specifically what she might be forced to do if he were to lose it…

"I didn't," he confessed curtly, his lips curled in disgust with the idea of attacking the unsuspecting citizens of Volterra. "You would have seen me decide to do that, and you know that's illegal," he reminded her in a dark, angry tone, like he was a lot smarter than Alice was giving him credit and he detested being treated like a child. "If you had been paying attention to my future, you would know that I climbed into the sewers at the first sign of civilization." He briefly gestured downwards to indicate his rapid decent underground, before his hand shot back to his neck, scratching feverishly at the blaze raging beneath his skin, which I realized must be a hundred times worse than my own.

But presently, I was more worried about the implications of Jasper's statement, than his thirst—what did he mean when he said _If you had been paying attention to my future_? Did he really mean what I thought? That Alice could only keep track of so many futures at once, and she had been so wrapped up in watching our futures that she hadn't seen any of his until it directly intersected with ours because his hadn't been a priority? _Did she have another "blind spot" that we ought to worry about?_ _Or had Jasper's "decisions" simply been made so instinctually, without meditation—_ like my "decision" to carve up my skin with soap after my first meal— _that they had escaped Alice's notice?_

The latter option would be a little more reassuring. But given how logically Jasper was describing his choices, despite the severity of his thirst, I doubted it was the case.

Alice swayed her little arms around her ashamedly, clearly feeling embarrassed for not being more aware of Jasper's choices. But in her concern for his well-being, she decided to question him further, revealing just how much she had missed in her preoccupation.

"And… the receptionist?" Alice tentatively asked, her burgundy eyes searching out Aro, who clearly knew the answer from Jasper's thoughts. Her wincing face clearly indicated that she believed the answer wasn't going to be pretty.

I swallowed as I pictured Gianna, in all her green-eyed beauty and refinery, rising from her mahogany desk to offer a cordial greeting, or maybe politely ask if he had an appointment, before Jasper abruptly seized her by the shoulders and tore savagely into her neck with his razor sharp teeth—it wasn't like she could fight him off.

"She escaped… barely," Jasper muttered uncomfortably, in a voice full of bitterness towards Alice's neglect, but also one clearly vastly disturbed with himself for trying to eat her.

Of course I was simply impressed that he had ultimately restrained himself when he was so ludicrously ravenous— _or had someone else restrained him?_ I wondered, highly doubting that Jasper could have exhibiting such extraordinary curbing of his instincts when he was so wildly hungry.

"I… hesitated… when I felt her fear," he clarified, upon seeing everyone's incredulous looks. "And she took the opportunity to run," Jasper went on in a clipped tone, bowing his head slightly in shame as he recalled the traumatic incident. "I decided not to chase her."

Alice shook her head reprovingly and in complete disbelief—his actions made absolutely no sense to her. "Why, Jasper?"

"Your _master_ wouldn't like it if I ate one of his underlings without his permission," he mumbled derisively through gritted teeth, throwing a fleeting, caustic glance towards Aro as he spoke.

"That's not what I meant," Alice said with a tight-lipped frown. "I meant why, in all those years, didn't you ever satisfy your thirst?!" she shouted furiously, baring her own venom-glistening teeth and snarling viciously in disapproval. "I told you that even Carlisle had to, periodically!"

This was news to me. "What?" I exclaimed, hoping for an explanation of what "Carlisle periodically satisfying his thirst" actually entailed—certainly she couldn't mean that every so often the kindly doctor totally abandoned drinking animal blood and ate people, could she? But Alice and Jasper were too busy growling at each other, and so they ignored me.

"I figured Bella would show up before then!" He bellowed back even louder, inclining his head in Alice's direction as though his decision was somehow all her fault. "And in case you didn't notice ma'am, I was really starting to like the whole not-killing-people-thing!" Jasper retorted. There was an aggrieved edge to his voice that indicated that Alice _had_ completely failed to notice, or perhaps even worse, chosen not to care, that living the deleterious vegetarian lifestyle had made him much happier than feeding by more orthodox methods.

"I know it's unsustainable," he sighed dejectedly, obviously wishing that wasn't the case. "But it was so _nice_ just for a while to not have to feel their terror. Every. Single. Time. I was willing to trade my health for that," he declared passionately.

His dark eyes glittered with emotion, before they snapped shut in pain as his hands instinctively constricted even tighter around his throat. He was making me worried that he might accidentally decapitate himself with all the pressure he was exerting on the skin and muscles there.

" _That's_ why I did it—not for your little scheme to save the planet," he spat the words like they were poison, making Alice flinch. "But for _me_." He punctuated this last poignant statement by jabbing a pointer finger at his chest.

Alice immediately parted her rosy lips to argue, before she abruptly reconsidered her decision, probably seeing that the possible futures of that choice were undesirable. She snapped her mouth shut with an audible "pop" and took a deep breath before she spoke in a much calmer voice.

"And now?" she asked slowly, perplexed by his apparent change of heart.

Jasper glowered icily at Alice—an expression that looked much more appropriate on Caius than the compassionate Texan vampire. It betrayed that his ill-feelings towards her were not simply the result of a him feeling a little "hangry", but that he had been rather upset with her over these issues for quite some time.

"You know I can't be separated from you for too long, my _mate,_ " he said coldly.

This caused a few stifled gasps to sound in discreet corners of the room, and excited Marcus to stir in his seat, his eyelids flickering three times before he resumed his bored gazing at the far wall.

Alice hung her head guiltily, and I was again confused by his cryptic statement—something was going on here that I didn't understand. They were not behaving like the amorous couple I had seen in Forks—obviously there was a huge rift happening in their marriage over dietary disagreements, which Marcus must be seeing with his power. And although my insatiable curiosity was eager to learn every facet of their story, I didn't want to get in the middle of their fight right now. Not when I was so famished-out-my-mind myself and I didn't have the slightest clue what the true nature of their "mateship" even was.

Apparently being mated wasn't all sunshine and roses, as I had initially assumed.

After a few seconds of oppressively tense silence, during which my petite friend anxiously tapped her feet and wrung her hands in remorseful discomfort and her towering husband stared murderously at her, definitely _not_ accepting her tacit apology, Aro turned back to Jasper.

He paused in his foreign language conversation over the phone to say: "Heidi has agreed to bring fifteen more persons, as that is all she can procure in such short notice. Is that acceptable, my friend?"

This time Jasper didn't protest to the amicable appellation, he merely nodded, not taking his seething obsidian eyes off of Alice for a moment and succinctly replied, "That should be enough. But if it isn't…" he said, as though the situation was very likely, before he trailed off, audibly gulping back the rest of his sentence, as though the words were too painful to speak aloud.

"Then I will take you hunting myself," Aro finished for him without even a glimmer of hesitation. He then fluently bid farewell to Heidi over the phone and gracefully returned the anachronistic device to his wife, who quickly slipped it back into her designer purse.

Jasper pursed his lips and bobbed his head obediently, though I could tell there was no real enthusiasm in it. The last thing Jasper wanted was to endure any more human death than strictly necessary—the lofty pleasure of feeding held little to no appeal to him, in light of the unbelievable pain.

I still couldn't believe that one vampire could imbibe the blood of that many people in one sitting. But having seen how many Vera needed when she had expended her powers to heal Edward, and realizing that Jasper had probably been expending similar levels of energy without being fully satisfied for half a century, I was beginning to grasp just how dire his situation was right now.

No wonder Alice didn't believe him when he admitted to letting Aro's secretary live—had I been in his position, she would be dead six ways to Sunday by now.

I could only hope that he could bear to wait a little longer. Heidi wasn't scheduled to return for another couple of hours, and with the requirement of bringing in extra people surreptitiously, she might be somewhat delayed. I was also fairly certain that Aro's staff wanted to keep their throats intact. And if Jasper were to reenact my eighteenth birthday party, judging from his sour expression, I was rather assured that the humans working here wouldn't be the only ones upset with his savage behavior. The poor man would hate himself for it, with a depth of sorrow I could never truly understand.


	5. Chapter 4: Second Taste

**AN: Poor Jasper—his powers really suck in my opinion. Sure, it's really awesome to be able to manipulate the feelings of others, but to be forced to feel everything around you has got to be crazy and very painful. I have no idea how he has survived so many high schools—those places are hotbeds for ridiculous drama, and he would feel _all_ of it from EVERYONE. No wonder he snapped in New Moon—Edward was right there, smelling his singer blood, which of course Jasper felt, along with the thirst of all the other Cullens.**

 **I think I'm a sadist. I enjoy exploring the more negative aspects of super-powers _way_ too much.**

* * *

 **Chapter Four: Second Taste**

It was nothing short of a miracle that Jasper was able to remain in the throne room until Heidi's return. There were a few occasions where his leg muscles had tensed and he had nearly darted for the exit, instinctively searching out someone to slake his fathomless thirst. But with Aro's help, whispering soothing words into his ear, and overwhelming the younger vampire with his lulling pheromones, Jasper had stayed safely away from any unsuspecting human beings, inside or outside the castle.

When the augmented party of "tourists" finally arrived, the syncopated clatter of their footsteps echoing nosily off the sienna stone walls beyond the dinning hall's hidden door, Aro's influence was no longer enough. Jasper hissed viciously, took off running towards the encouraging sound, and had to be restrained, much like I had been in the training room, to prevent him from bolting into the hallway and causing our meal to scatter in terror throughout the castle.

I had anticipated more of a fight when a trio of strength-type guards darted after him, or at least the sort of haphazard skirmish that had broken out on my birthday party. But the enormous walls of muscle that confronted Jasper were much better trained in grappling with vampires than Emmett and Carlisle. Within seconds of his initial departure from Aro's side, the three of them had wrestled his torso and head into a tight bind, and completely halted his progress across the warm stone floor. He thrashed with all his might against their bulky arms, and gnashed his teeth furiously, spilling a sizeable amount of venom on the floor, and spattering it in his restrainer's faces. Ultimately, though, in his far-gone state of thirst, his efforts were weak, and thus he was unable to escape.

It stunned me as he kicked violently against their shins and snapped at his captors' necks just how much weaker than me he really was. He wriggled and came very close to biting one of them a few times, but no bones cracked when he drove his boots into their calve and despite all his bucking and lunging, the guard's feet didn't budge an inch. Restraining him, compared to me, was a piece of cake, almost like all his ferocious struggles were the pathetic flails of a mortal.

While Jasper impotently fought for release, Aro's deep maroon eyes sought me ought, as if expecting me to react similarly once the scent of human blood reached my nostrils. I too, sort of expected myself to react irrationally when that happened. But as the group drew nearer, their mixture of delicious aromas wafting through the air into my sensitive nostrils, I did nothing of the sort. My throat suddenly burned hotter again—a stabbing, fiery pain—reminding me of the unavoidable fact that I was quite ravenous. But I didn't feel the same compulsion to devour that I had felt earlier, so I was able to hold my ground on my own.

My ability to resist my instincts this time perplexed Aro, who regarded my unmoving booted feet with a deep skepticism. But I wasn't entirely surprised—the scents of all these people were muddled together, and though they all smelled very appetizing, warranting the production of additional venom in my mouth, they all paled vastly in comparison with Ebele's blood.

Hers was something else…

Despite my steadfast outward exhibition of restraint, Aro remained unconvinced that I would remain firmly planted in place indefinitely. So with a small inclination of his head in my direction he sent three more of his leather-clad guards to stand closer to me, prepared to tackle me into a solid headlock if I made any sudden movements.

I was about to roll my eyes at his decision, but ultimately decided against it—Aro was just being cautious, there was nothing wrong with that.

After a few seconds of every vampire waiting with bated breath, grinding their glistening teeth and anxiously licking their lips, a delicate female hand quickly shoved aside the concealing wooden panel and unhesitatingly opened the secret door hidden behind it. I held my breath as Heidi strolled in, anticipating a rush of mouthwatering smells that I wasn't sure I could resist well enough to wait until Aro gave the signal. It was uncomfortable to not be able to detect anything with my nose, because despite my heightened sense of smell being another reminder of my monstrous nature, I had quickly acclimated to relying heavily on that sense to take in my surroundings. Denying myself that intake was almost as disorienting as suddenly going deaf—there were reminders everywhere I looked that I _should_ be smelling something, but precisely what that was supposed to be was lost on me like the plot of a television show when you couldn't hear what they were saying and there were no closed captions.

With my airways cut off, I watched Heidi move seductively towards the center of the room with a sour expression on her face directed at Aro, as if to say "it's your fault I took so long, demanding I come up with more unmissed persons on the spot". Aro frowned slightly as he registered her scowl, which didn't pair nicely with her short, sunny white dress and matching thigh-high boots. But he refrained from commenting, instead opting to watch with rapt interest as the multicultural allotment of people filtered excitedly into the room with bright smiles and a few flashing cameras.

I watched too, but my face did not mirror Aro's appearance of pleased contentment lurking with sinister edges of ravenous glee. Instead, I struggled to keep myself from gaping in shock and horror, and thus expose myself to the maddening aroma of human blood no doubt saturating the air, as the crowd of "tourists" swelled larger with no perceivable end in sight. I pursed my lips into a hard line and staunchly choked back my surprise so that I didn't foolishly assault my senses with a tidal wave of deliciousness. I counted forty, fifty, sixty people, with more still spilling in after them.

My throat pulsed with fire and my mouth drowned in venom as the group grew— _so much blood,_ I thought gluttonously. _Too much_ , my compassionate soul rephrased as my eyes flickered over the enormous mass of humans, which finally topped out at seventy-five persons total. I watched as Heidi surreptitiously slid the hidden panel shut and locked the door behind them after the last one, a short Columbian woman, had stepped in. _Didn't Aro say that Heidi had only agreed to bring fifteen more than usual?_ Then again, _every_ member of the Volturi was here today, unlike last time, so perhaps Heidi had already arranged a larger batch to accommodate them.

A bright white light that filled my entire frame of vision jolted me from my thoughts before the room abruptly faded back into darkness, only to be replaced with stark illumination again only fractions of a second later. I blinked uncomfortably as my hyper-sensitive sight was assaulted with a series of these rapid oscillations between brightness and gloom and was about to snarl at whoever was doing that to cut it out (I knew light like that didn't come from natural objects like the sun) when I discovered the unlikely source of my vexation.

A pair of lewdly staring teenage boys standing in the front of the group and off to my right were repeatedly snapping pictures of me, several of which were most definitely not pointed at my face, and chuckling to themselves as they crudely captured my likeness in digital form. Once they noticed I had become privy to their activities, they immediately lost interest and turned their inappropriate attention toward the wives, much to Caius' dismay, to avoid trouble.

I wasn't going to give them any regardless—I was too confused by their naïve assumption that I was some gorgeous stranger to be ogled, not a terrifying monster to be scampered away from to be angry at them for snapping pictures of my leather-panted legs. I guess I had forgotten that aside from my inhumanly pale skin and reddish black eyes that I appeared essentially ordinary, if unusually attractive, and theirs was a predictable reaction to that fact. It just felt so wrong for them to have no idea at all, not the slightest conception that they were now in a room full of their natural predators—that things like blurry pictures of hot foreign girls would quickly become irrelevant, because their lives were about to end.

But I was somewhat relieved to realize that the others were not so oblivious.

Initially most of the tourists assumed that nothing was amiss, talking animatedly with one another in various languages about the architecture and the room's stunning occupants as they moved in a dense clump between the entrance and the center of the circular room. But as they began more closely observe their surroundings, noting that the Volturi all shared the same unearthly pallor, and began contemplate the suspicious circumstances that had brought them here, bewildered and fearful murmurings began to intersperse the lighthearted chatter.

Jasper in particular, growling like a wildcat as his chin streamed with venom, and staring thirstily at the nearest neck with wide obsidian eyes as he bucked against the six strong arms holding him in place was hard to miss. And all who heard or saw him instinctively backed away in confusion and alarm.

Upon realizing that the rest of this room's occupants were eyeing them in a similar, unnerving manner, a plump American couple began to seriously doubt their safety in this unfamiliar environment. They frantically looked towards their tour guide, Heidi, whom they assumed was human, thanks to a pair of dark brown contacts, petitioning her with their worried eyes to explain what was going on here. Of course, they were given no explanation—Heidi simply smirked callously. Just as a large family of South Americans were beginning to mumble in frightened tones among themselves, Aro elegantly stepped forward, causing an uncomfortable silence to settle over the group.

With the understandable exception of Jasper, not a single person moved a muscle or made a sound as Aro floated breathtakingly to the front of the ample crowd of people Heidi had fetched for us. His movements were so fluid and beautiful—godlike, even—that everyone whose wits remained about them, human and vampire alike, paused to stare in awe at the rapturous sight. Suddenly it didn't matter that his jacket sleeves were inelegantly shredded, or that he wasn't wearing his finely tailored velvety robes—he was stunning in spite of it all. Especially when he passed through one of the rectangles of light on the floor and every inch of his exposed skin glittered with a glorious radiance.

The sight of his face sparkling under the amber afternoon rays of the sun was nothing short of divine, but my skin still prickled when a couple of astonished gasps breathed from human lips breached the otherwise still air. Having grown quite accustomed to the idea of vampires refracting rainbows beneath strong enough lights, I hadn't expected their reaction. But as the crowd gaped openly in amazement, suddenly it dawned on me that these people had probably never seen anything like this in their entire lives.

The atmosphere rapidly fell stagnant again when Aro glided smoothly back into the darkness, and I swallowed uncomfortably as I realized that had been the first and the _last_ time these people would ever see the glory of a vampire caught in direct sunlight.

I was one of the rare few privileged to witness such a sight more than once—even as a human I had seen sparkling flesh far too many times to count, and I was bound to see it hundreds more times now that I owned prismatic skin myself. When Edward had first revealed this unique quality about him to me in the forest I hadn't understood why he could ever perceive something so awe-inspiring to be so horribly vile— _this is the skin of a killer_ , he had said. But now that I was beginning to make the firm connection between vampires' unique characteristics and our… shall we say unique diet… I completely understood why he had said that.

Our skin was cold, hard; alien—words that I feared were starting to become an apt description of myself in general—and while it was beautiful, it was also extremely deadly.

At last, Aro stopped in front of the person standing closest to the center of the room, a petite Chinese woman, whose scuffed, hand-me-down shoes were nearly touching the round grate in the middle of the floor. Her curious brown eyes looked up in wonderment at the imposing man before her, but surprisingly they held absolutely no trace of fear—She appeared considerably shocked, as though stunned that such an angelic being would grace her with his presence, but completely unafraid. Without a word, Aro's nimble, chilly fingers swept tenderly beneath her chin, and all (minus Jasper, again) watched in reverence as he softly stroked her warm, papery skin.

My neck throbbed again as I watched him handle her so delicately—how he could manage to be so ludicrously sensitive when those hands possessed such lethal strength was a complete mystery to me. I routinely broke doorknobs and sturdy furniture on accident and was capable of shattering vampire bone if I really put my mind to it, but somehow this woman didn't even wince in mild discomfort. Based on her glowing complexion it was like every one of Aro's caresses was a feather bath—perfectly tender, not at all the bone-crushing treatment she would inevitably receive from me if I were to attempt the same thing.

As Aro took in the middle-aged woman's thoughts through their connected skin, momentarily his eyes flickered with a sea of mostly unreadable emotions, though I recognized the fleeting appearance of pain and sadness among them all too frequently. Obviously this woman led a rough life and I was simultaneously relieved that her suffering would not have to continue for much longer, aghast with myself for thinking such a thing, and pained that Aro had to endure her hardships too. I wasn't given much time to grieve for either of them, however, because immediately after the influx of memories stopped, Aro's hands shot out with absolutely no warning and gave the Chinese woman's head a sharp twist to the right which instantaneously snapped her neck.

It had happened so fast, even I struggled for a few fractions of a second to process what had occurred—that Aro had already made the first kill.

The other vampires seemed to catch on rather quickly, their muscles tensing and rippling in preparation for the hunt. But the other humans were quite slow, merely standing in stupefied shock for several seconds before they seemed to finally understand what the hair-raising _crack_ that had echoed throughout the room meant.

At that instant of horrific comprehension, a chorus of high-pitched screams erupted from the unbelieving onlookers and a few humans quickly backed up against the door, trying to run away. To the tourists' dismay, however, they found their only exit firmly locked, and though two remained behind, fitfully pounding against the ancient wood as though hoping to break it down, the rest scampered off in search of somewhere to hide.

As the humans dashed around wildly like chickens with their heads cut off, screaming and yelling as if someone would hear them and come to their aid, grimly I consoled myself in the knowledge that Aro's movements had been so sharp, they had probably killed the woman before her sluggish brain could even register any pain. But this consolation quickly backfired when I recalled that I had been urged _not_ to give my next victim the same merciful treatment.

 _Killing people is okay, killing people is okay, killing people is okay…_ I repeated to myself again, hoping the manic mantra would banish all the noxious guilt that was bubbling up in my stomach as I imagined sinking my teeth into flesh that was still wriggling in pain. _It will be delicious_ … the less rational part of my brain contributed not-entirely-helpfully, _and why care that they will suffer? Their pain only proves that they are human… you are more than that…_

 _No,_ I fought back earnestly, even though my throat was blazing with thirst now and my mouth was threatening to surge open to release a yelp of agony. _Their pain proves that they are important—that they have real feelings, real hopes and real dreams: that they have real, meaningful humanity,_ I argued. I shrank back as I thought of my human friends back in Forks and their aspirations in life, realizing that the people brought here today probably weren't much different, even if I didn't know them personally.

 _But Aro does know them personally—he knew that woman as well as she knew herself and was still able to kill her,_ the beast reminded me as people continued to scurry chaotically about. They were desperately searching for a way out and breaking into heart-wrenching sobs as one eluded them. _Perhaps you can think like him,_ both the logical and instinctual parts of my brain asserted, startling me with their rapid agreement. _Appreciate their sacrifice and the magnitude of what that means, but not angst unnecessarily—wouldn't that be perfect?_

While I seriously began to mull the prospect over, trying to invent a way to incorporate his mentality into my feeding without adopting his pain-sparing practices, I watched the first woman to die collapse into Aro's eagerly waiting arms. _Is it possible to mourn human loss while not slipping into despair?_ I asked myself while I witnessed Aro regard the tiny deceased form cradled to his chest with a sad reverence. _Or should I imitate another member of the guard in my reconciliation efforts?_ I wondered, before a series of fuzzy, gruesome images from the first time I had watched the guard feed invaded my mind, causing me to involuntarily produce more venom as bloody, broken skin filled my vision.

I wrapped my fingers slowly around my blazing neck and tried to swallow the small lake of fluid pooling eagerly on my tongue—whatever I might choose to feel about my future prey's pain was rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Somehow without breathing, I licked my lips in anticipation—I was ready to feed.

Of course, that was if we ever actually got around to it.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a few other vampires were beginning to look somewhat impatient with Aro as he ignored even the cords of venom dripping from his own mouth while he stared down at the peacefully dead woman in his arms. Alice pursed her painted red lips into a dissatisfied line. Heidi rolled her false brown eyes. And Caius even petulantly crossed his arms and began tapping his foot in annoyance against the echoing floor. Other than some minor fidgeting though, not a single vampire moved (besides Jasper, of course who wriggled with even greater enthusiasm than before now that the first human had been slaughtered)—we were obediently waiting for Aro's signal.

After a few more seconds of waiting for any indication from Aro, who seemed utterly frozen in place, I too began to thump my foot against the chalky stones in irritation. The sight of our prey scampering around shrieking and wailing—a sight which would have totally horrified me as a human—was now particularly mouthwatering for some unknowable reason, and that was even in the absence of smell. I was certain that if I were open my nostrils and take in all the adrenaline, fear and blood mingled in the air, no force on earth or in heaven could stop me from tearing across the floor and biting savagely into one of their necks.

While we waited, I noticed that a few guards opted to sever their airways as well, rather than risk lashing out. How the others managed to restrain themselves without holding their breath, I had no idea.

Realizing that we were all waiting on him, Aro suddenly lifted his head with a demented smile and happily declared the last words the rest of these humans would ever hear: " _Benvenuti a Volterra_!" he sang in his melodious baritone voice, which I knew from a sign we had passed during Alice's frenetic drive over here was the Italian version of "Welcome to Volterra".

His sudden vocalization caused most of the people in the room to hesitantly halt in their tracks when they realized they were being addressed, but they didn't remain still for very long. Almost immediately after his ominous greeting, Aro hungrily buried his head in his prey's neck, audibly ripping through her fragile skin and slurping from the wound—an action which inspired even more horror and desire to flee in our "guests", who obviously hadn't expected their fate to be _getting_ _eaten_.

The guard needed no further prompting. Those who had been tenaciously holding Jasper back also suddenly let go, allowing the utterly famished southern vampire to savagely break into a run—but he was far from alone as he zipped hungrily towards his food. All at once we surged towards the center of the room, where the bulk of the tourists were congregated—I now among the wall of black shapes sprinting forward, rather than watching the scene unfold in revulsion from Aro's throne on the dais. We dropped our inhibitions towards fully inhaling, and all hissed with undisguised pleasure as a whirlwind of amazing smells tantalized our noses.

My esophagus flared hotter as the diverse aromas lambasted my brain, and the venom swimming in my mouth spilled stickily over my chin as I ran, spotting my clothes and hair, but I hardly cared about the mess. I was too excited, whipped into a frenzy by my own thirst, the smell of mortal fear, and the utter chaos that had erupted throughout the entire room as scared-for-their-lives humans scattered hysterically in every direction. A little bit of globby saliva clinging to me here and there was utterly inconsequential.

However, in some ways my anticipation was detrimental—for as we converged on the terrified party of humans trapped near the grate in the middle of the floor, I barely noticed Marcus, Jane and Alice seize their chosen victims and begin to feed. I heard the sound of breaking flesh accompanied by frantic, bloodcurdling screams, and I briefly caught glimpses of the three with their teeth deeply sunk into large arteries, noting with some interest that Jane had chosen to feed from the wrist, rather than the neck this time. Other than that, though, their meals were a chaotic blur of black and red.

But there was absolutely no way I could miss seeing Jasper furiously tackle the first human in his path, bashing their head fatally against the floor before he bit hard into their neck and enthusiastically swallowed away at the ensuing fluids. It was a sight so brutal, so raw that it ought to have made my stomach churn, but surprisingly this time it didn't.

Instead it only made me hungrier.

I stopped running as soon as Jasper's victim blacked out and stared, thick droplets of drool leaking from the corner of my mouth while Jasper messily ate. My eyes eagerly followed the trail of red, focusing first on the viscous blood pooled behind the man's head where it had struck the ground before they flicked over to see more ardently being sucked from his throat into Jasper's crimson lips. The smell wafting from the man's corpse was sweeter than I would have preferred, but tasty enough to trigger the appropriate instincts. I bared my teeth instinctively, and nearly lowered into a powerful crouch, ready to spring onto the famished Texan vampire and wrestle him away so that I could drink from the man's injured neck myself, until I abashedly recalled that there was plenty of food to go around.

Straightening instantly, I heartily shook myself and resumed running around the room, sniffing the flavorful air—now spiced with several strains of spilt blood—in search for a meal that particularly appealed to my picky palate. Of course none of them came even close to the exquisite taste Ebele's veins promised. But after a few minutes of looking I found one, coming from a short Indian woman cowering in one of the dimmest corners of the room, that was sufficiently delicious smelling. I decided she would have to do.

I felt a fleeting pang of empathy for her as she sobbed silently against the wall, hoping to evade discovery by remaining in her strategic location, but it was quickly eradicated with another wave of throbbing pain in my throat— _she is prey, you are a predator,_ my instincts helpfully reminded me. _There is no reason for you to regret this. You do not have either Jasper's or Aro's gifts so it will be painless—exhilarating, actually. Go!_

And so I went—I took off at full speed, making a beeline for the pitiful woman, who shrieked in piercing terror as she saw my deadly approach and threw her hands uselessly up in front of her face to try and protect herself. Of course, it was beyond her meager abilities to stop me. I easily swatted away her frightfully shielding appendages and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders.

Unfortunately, I dislocated them both in the process, which made her scream, high and long as her bones dislodged from their appropriate sockets. Her howl of distress momentarily gave me pause and I froze, staring uncertainly into her terrified brown eyes, which reminded me so much of my former human self it was starting to make me feel sick.

Immediately I averted my eyes and I nearly dropped her in that instant—horrified with myself for perusing human slaughter with such enthusiasm—until I recalled the bargain I had made with the universe earlier today.

 _If I fed without remorse this time, then everyone would survive_ , I had promised, even though there was absolutely no way to guarantee such a thing. _If I could manage this, I could do anything,_ I affirmed a little more logically, realizing that if I could surmount this incredible hurdle, there likely wasn't anything else I couldn't bring myself to do, including saving the world. At least, I would possess the necessary willpower…

 _I don't have to deny her humanity to do this…_ I reminded myself as I pointedly looked in the other direction, only to catch Aro's head sailing back from his meal, his eyed closed, cheeks flushed and lips parted in the cry of delight. _I can face it head-on and still feed,_ I added while Aro gradually came back to earth from whatever heavenly dimension he'd been transported to and gingerly lowered his victim's body to the floor. _I can accept her sacrifice and not feel guilty—I can do this!_ I chanted inwardly, willing myself to believe it, before I choked down all of my trepidation.

I forced myself to gaze directly into the chocolaty irises of the woman shaking and whimpering in my grasp. The intense fright I saw reflected back at me almost made me lose my resolve again, especially as the woman's lips quavered and she muttered something unintelligible in a pathetic, cracking voice, (probably a plea for mercy, but it was in a language I didn't understand). But what really made my heart sting were the little drops of water that spilled over her coppery cheeks. Tears—I could no longer shed those. And to be forced to confront someone who could still weep, someone who possessed the enviable, uniquely human trait of leaking salty water when in distress only made me more acutely aware of the fact that I was, essentially at the core, a selfish, callous monster.

Staring down at this frail woman as she whimpered for release made me feel rotten inside.

Of course, no matter how I might have felt at the moment, my throat couldn't stand to wait any longer—the woman's blood was thundering at a breakneck pace in my ears, and her scent (a heady combination of horror, adrenaline and metallic spice) was driving me crazy. So after a fleeting, sorrowful hesitation, I gave in.Pulling her body roughly closer to me, I descended on her neck, stunned at how easily I sliced through the layers of skin that were meant to protect its more vital contents with my razor-sharp teeth, and began to drink fervently from the wound.

Though I'd felt it on my tongue once before, the temperature of her blood still shocked me when it splashed into my mouth—how could anyone stand to be so hot all the time? It felt oddly scalding and wonderful at the same time, like a delicious soup that was a bit too warm to safely consume, but nonetheless an incredible treat. I wasn't actually burned by it of course, my body was too resilient to be harmed by something that was at most 100 degrees Fahrenheit. However the heat did liven every nerve on my tongue, making me hyper-aware of that portion of my body. And the more I guzzled down the more I became convinced that the natural warmth that human blood from the source had was actually the perfect temperature—it was so invigorating.

Distantly I was aware of a continuous shrill noise that was ringing loudly in my ears as I bent over my prey, and an irritating feathery brushing against my legs and face that grew less vigorous with time, but I was too busy trying to suck as much blood from this woman's body as I could with as little waste as possible to analyze them any further. I had assumed because I hadn't clumsily torn her head off, that avoiding a mess while feeding this time would be considerably easier. But despite the fact that none of her blood was spraying inedibly over my shoulders, I still felt like a lot of it wasn't ending up in my digestive system.

Some of it had to do with the fact that she kept moving, fitfully trying to push me away—a fact I tried not to dwell on—and thus the vein I was drinking from in her neck kept changing position beneath my lips. But even when she slowly began to still, too faint from loss of blood to struggle anymore, and that shrill noise faded, I continued to fail to prevent some of her blood from staining her clothing and beading in small quantities on the floor.

It was surprisingly difficult to control the flow, especially now that her heartbeat had turned erratic, and I often got myself into trouble by slurping with greater urgency when her blood stilled between pulses, only to experience a rush of more than I could possibly swallow once her heart picked back up again. Streams of thick, hot fluid poured past my lips, dribbling down the human's neck and out of my line of sight. But I didn't dare detach my mouth from its current position to try and lap them up with my tongue because I feared I would only accidentally discard more blood by leaving the gouge I had made in her neck unattended.

I could only hope that whatever I managed to gulp down was enough—because I wasn't sure I could handle killing any more than one person on any given day, my resolve to try and not feel remorse, notwithstanding. Especially now that I suddenly understood what that shrill noise had been—that had been the sound of my victim screaming at the top of her lungs.

And now she was silent.

It took all of my willpower not to shudder at that fact.

When all of the blood finally exited my victim's body, whether it had ended up in my stomach or not, I slowly extricated my teeth from the buttery layers human skin I had buried them in. I kept my head dipped to lick away any obviously salvable trails, until I was absolutely certain that I managed to drink up as much of her delicious life-sustain fluid as possible. Only then did I fully draw back, tossing my head away from the suddenly limp, silent corpse in my arms and allow myself to "finish". Or whatever you wanted to call the highly exhilarating act of having one's heart flare to life and spread all the accumulated blood outwards to nourish every cell in their body.

My whole body relaxed as the warmth thrillingly rushed through me, and when it soaked into my tissues, coloring my cheeks a rosy pink and restoring the bright crimson hue to my eyes, I gave a satiated moan—both as a vocalization of my pleasure and an audible sign to the others still in the midst of chasing or feeding that I was done. The sensation that followed my cry was blissful, floaty, but it was so overwhelming that it made my vision fog over with red and caused my fiercely clutching arms to suddenly drop dazedly to my sides, dropping my bloodless victim heartlessly on the floor in the process.

Normally I would have cringed as her body flopped ungracefully on the ground, and possibly began to apologize for treating her that way—even though words were meaningless to the dead. But I was too busy sailing in heaven to even notice that I had let go. I staggered backwards a few steps involuntarily with my back still sharply arched in delight, and remained in that unnatural position, totally lost from reality for who knows how long.

When I finally filtered back to earth and comprehended that my hands were now empty, I firmly avoided looking at my feet, where I knew the body of my second meal lied bloodless and crumpled like a discarded candy wrapper. Still feeling a bit dazed from the blood rush, I wasn't ready to face what I had done. Instead, I surveyed the rest of the room, watching with morbid fascination as the rest of the Volturi continued their feast, intent on trying to make myself more comfortable with the grisly scene surrounding me, because this was far from the last time I would see such a thing.

Half of the guard was already finished with their meal I was a little stunned to notice. All of those who required only one human being to sate their thirst had consumed that person and deposited their lifeless bodies in an ungainly heap near the center grate, (which I refused to gaze at for longer than strictly necessary). And the remainder were working on their second or third victim.

The sight of Marcus avidly drinking from a slender brunette while a plump red-head lied contorted and unresponsive at his feet didn't really faze me as much as I had anticipated it would. Nor did the sight of Heidi with two dark-skinned men piled in front of her while she guzzled from a third. I knew that their powers expended a particular toll on their bodies, and this was the price for using them.

But when I saw Vera, mere seconds after dropping her first kill against the chalky stone, unfeelingly tear a man from the grip of his wife, ignoring her heartbroken screams in favor of harshly biting into his shoulder, I flinched in horror. And when Chen suddenly dashed in before I could even begin to properly feel sorry for the widow Vera had devastated and grabbed the bereaved woman from behind, hauling her grief-stricken form up into his arms, and cheerily sliced into her jugular vein, I nearly threw up.

I guess it wasn't the sheer quantity of death that disturbed me anymore, but rather the implications of what was being lost. Whereas the others I had seen get seized and devoured seemed to be unmarried orphans, interspersed with the occasional pair of siblings, (though, without seeing the list, I couldn't be sure) the two humans I had just witnessed get eaten were the only obvious, ring-wearing married couple. And although I understood from a logical and humane perspective that it was better to have both spouses die than leave one behind with painful, unanswered questions, it was still jarring to behold.

I wasn't sure what to feel as I watched the once beautifully united couple literally get torn apart before my eyes. If there was some sort of afterlife, as several well-respected vampires had hinted towards, then I had no doubts that they would be reunited in death. But if not... and I hadn't yet decided what I believed in that regard, so there still remained a high possibility in my mind that there might simply be nothing but this life… then their love, however profound and beautiful it had been, now ceased to exist.

All because a few vampires were a little thirsty.

My lips quavered in the beginnings of a sob while Chen enthusiastically chugged down the woman's blood, paying no mind to her weak, terrified gasps and frail kicks against his impenetrable calves. It didn't feel right for something as rare and precious as true love to die for such base purposes. I thought that vampires, of all species, with their undying devotion to their mates ought to recognize the significance of what they were destroying, and shivered at the coldness Vera had shown. A wail of sorrow bubbled in my throat for the human lovers' loss, but ultimately I stopped myself from dryly bawling at the last moment.

These were precisely the sorts of sacrifices that I needed to get comfortable with making.

Perhaps a few couples would die to feed us, but thousands—no, _millions_ more—would live because of my contribution to the Volturi, I rationalized.

 _Killing people is okay,_ I repeated manically to myself again. _Because their sacrifice means so many more will live,_ I added, taking an unsteady deep breath to try and calm myself down.

However, just when I finished resolving to view the rest of the primal feast without shying away from even the most uncomfortable implications, a dark shape whipped past me, tossing my mahogany hair into my face and causing a fierce gust of wind to blast over my whole body. Instinctively I whirled around to catch sight of whatever was bolting so close to me, and was astonished to recognize the back of a wavy-blond head as belonging to Jasper. His gusto confused me—there were still plenty of humans to pick from, and most had given up all hope of escaping. They simply cowered with their hands over their heads on the floor, waiting to face their horrible fate, and so there was no real reason to run.

But when I saw Jasper savagely shoot his hands out to grab one of these pitiful creatures and practically shove their throat into his mouth, chewing hungrily through their skin before proceeding to scarf down all of their blood in record time, my body automatically understood the reason for his haste.

He truly was famished—more so than I had ever seen anyone.

And because of that fact, the man whose head he had bashed in earlier and the one I just watched him slash into were not enough. Jasper "finished", his head sailed away from the pale form clutched tightly in his bruising grasp, his now dim maroon eyes fluttered closed and his mouth widened to emit a sound halfway between a happy sigh and sharp hiss. And then he apathetically cast the corpse of his second victim aside and dashed off in search of another.

His chosen prey this time was a woman with curly black hair, though I hardly thought Jasper noticed anything of her appearance, because before she could even blink he had thrown down a fist into the top of her pretty little skull, concussing her to death instantly. Lifeless, she quickly toppled to the ground, and Jasper followed her down, catching her by the collar of her pale blue blouse before wrenching her up to his mouth.

After hanging limply from his teeth for a few seconds, the flimsy skin supporting all her weight shredded like string cheese and she began to fall again, blood spurting from the gaping wound. But the small spray that shot into Jasper's face didn't disturb him in the slightest, nor did the thumb-sized chunk of flesh caught between his red-stained lips—no these only managed to egg him on further, urging him to encircle his prey in a more secure hold with his arms before eagerly licking away the mess coating his chin and delving into her ruined neck.

Again, he ate with incredible haste, gulping huge mouthfuls of blood down loudly. And he even continued to hungrily suck at her utterly dry veins for a few seconds after he had drained everything she had to offer him before he pulled away gasping in unadulterated pleasure.

I twitched, struggling within myself to resist the urge to recoil in horror when I saw him hurl his third kill over his head, so that it would land floppily in the center pile with the others, before he rushed towards a petite Balinese monk, clad in saffron robes, praying in the corner.

He ate him too.

And another man, who had been clutching an old wooden crucifix in front of him with both hands and chanting what sounded like an exorcism of sorts in Latin.

And an entire family of South Americans.

But even as his body count soared higher, until he'd feverishly devoured at least fifteen people, he showed barely any discernable signs of his thirst abating. His cheeks flushed slightly with each feed before they rapidly faded back to white, and his eyes were gradually reddening. But even after swallowing so much nourishment, he was nowhere near satisfied. He was halfway there, at most.

And now there were no more humans left—all seventy-five humans who had been cruelly manipulated into entering this room had been drained and deposited in a towering heap beside the circular grate resting in the center of the floor. A few stray drops of blood littered the dusty beige floors here and there, spotted the clothing of the deceased or had dried atop cold, marble-like skin. But it wasn't even enough to be worthy perusing—or so I thought, until Jasper suddenly dropped to the floor and began eagerly licking up the paltry, dirty beads of red like his life depended on it.

My hand flew to my mouth to stifle a gasp as I witnessed the disgusting and peculiar sight, and Aro, who was in the midst of organizing the disposal of our eaten prey suddenly paused and turned from his companions to frown deeply at the disconcerting scene before him. In a flash, he zipped over to where Jasper had fallen on his stomach and lowered into a crouch so he could tenderly stroke the tense muscles of the famished southern vampire's back.

"There is no need for that," Aro purred delicately into the younger man's ear.

Aro's words caused the blonde to momentarily cease lapping the ancient stones beneath him and look hesitantly behind him.

"Come," Aro beckoned, extending an arm for Jasper to take and inclining his head in a jerky motion towards the room's exit. "I will take you hunting… outside city limits, of course," he added upon seeing Jasper's paralytic expression. "I know a place where you can feed until you are satisfied."

Jasper looked a little skeptical about Aro's last assertion—his face seemed to say "where on earth can I eat enough without drawing too much attention to myself?"—and for a moment I mirrored his disbelief until I saw the unwavering look in Aro's crimson eyes.

Without a doubt, he did know of such a place, and I suppressed a shudder as I tried to imagine where he might be intending to take Jasper—was he really going to go gobble up an entire village somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa? The thought of so much death being caused by someone who obviously hated causing it, from the way he was slowly beginning to tremble as he gradually rose to his feet and looked guiltily down at his hands, made my throat surge with bile.

Thankfully my swallowing reflexes were just as fast as my gag-reflex though, and so I avoided coughing up my recent meal. But as Aro graciously assisted the former Cullen to his feet and whisked him away out of the throne room off to who-knows-where, I still felt sick. Probably about fifteen more people were going to die, if I had to make an estimate, and the one who was going to slaughter them was probably going to deeply hate himself for it for the rest of his existence. That was what restoring Jasper's long-neglected health cost.

I could only hope that in the end, it would be worth it.


	6. Chapter 5: Vanitas

**AN: I wrote and re-wrote this chapter probably at least seven times, and I'm still not totally satisfied with it, because this chapter is kind of a lull in the action, but I feel like it has some necessary information I neglected to bring up earlier, before we get into the craziness that starts in the next chapter.**

 **Also, two Italian phrases for you, which are translated at the bottom. ;) Again, if anyone notices any grammatical or other errors with my Italian I am totally open to correction. I spent about an hour and a half trying to make sure I got it right, but I'm no native speaker, so I apologize if it's awkward or misused.**

* * *

 **Chapter Five: Vanitas**

Once Aro and Jasper had gone, the guard—minus Alice and myself—immediately began the same horrifying process of disposing of the leftover bodies which I had seen enacted the last time I had been here. Someone had grabbed the messy corpse I had carelessly left on the floor and added it to the pile, I was disturbed to notice. And several others were scurrying around with supernatural swiftness to collect the various crumpled forms Jasper had left strewn wildly around the room.

After a few seconds, all of the human remains were amassed in one place, stacked haphazardly atop one another. Arms and legs jutted out of the pile at unnatural angles, and wide glassy eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling. Deep, roughly crescent-shaped holes were carved into every body somewhere, most commonly on the neck, though a few were found on the wrists or closer to the collarbone. The peculiar wounds reminded me of the blunt grooves riddling Carlisle's body in his human memories, utterly dry except for a few spots of crusted blood. And the grisly pile before me now like the one he'd escaped that fateful night of his transformation.

I shuddered involuntarily as I recalled from his memories precisely what it felt like to wake up amid that mass of death.

While I watched, the leather-clad guard searched with impassive expressions every purse and pocket of the dead humans with their cold hands. They fished out spare change, wallets, phones and other valuables, which were set carefully aside in one pile. Next they harshly ripped away the corpses' clothes, shredding the sweat and blood stained fabric before it was thrown into another stack on the other side. I tried not to stare while the human's limp bodies were bared—it felt extremely disrespectful to do so—but none of the other Volturi treated these humans' sudden nakedness as something forbidden or embarrassing. To them, it seemed, human nudity was about as unimpressive as animal nudity. And as I looked at the hairy, porous, splotchy and frankly really gross skin that covered the whole bodies of our victims I was beginning to grasp why.

There was nothing alluring about them now, especially not contorted and lifeless as they were.

It stunned me, though, as I watched the guard coldly go about their work, which things they prized above others, most especially how pearls were regarded as more valuable than people. And as the pile of money, cameras and jewelry swelled higher, I suddenly felt as though I was looking at a _Vanitas_ painting. This sudden awareness only happened because I'd taken a short online humanities course during the summer to convince my father that Edward wasn't the only thing I was passionate about and that art style had particularly stood out to me for some reason. Probably because it was rather morbid and I had almost died at the hand of James only a few months before.

A typical _Vantias_ painting was extremely weird at first glance—just a motley assortment of random objects and a skull, or some other obvious representation of death—but it was all symbolic: a reminder that all of those things and what they stood for (books representing scholarship, crowns representing politics and so forth) were eventually doomed to crumble away to dust.

At the time, I had tried to use the paintings as leverage to gain immortality—my whole life will be vain if I just grow old and die like everyone else, I'd told Edward. But now as I looked at all the refinery that had been gathered up by the Volturi, juxtaposed with the owners' pale, bloodless corpses, the sentiment of the painting style hit home harder than ever before. Which was extremely bizarre because the idea—that all earthly treasures and pursuits were ultimately meaningless because mortality meant that they could never last very long—no longer applied to me. As long as I wasn't ripped to shreds and set on fire, I was everlasting, and any objects, knowledge or titles I gained I was likely to keep for good.

But for our victims, the _Vanitas_ story held very true.

Everything they had possessed, earned or become in their short lives was vain because it did nothing to prevent their bitter, bloody end.

Their whole existence had very anti-climatically led up to this.

And they wouldn't even leave a legacy behind to be remembered by to the rest of the world—they had been specifically selected for our consumption because the world _wouldn't_ mourn their loss. Worse, still, in most of these cases the world wouldn't even know that there had been a loss at all. The disappearances of a handful of invisible people, primarily from third-world countries meant nothing to most of humanity. And the few who were well-off enough to contribute cameras, watches and baubles to the small pile of loot, would only be another unfamiliar face amid the millions of missing people that were never found.

It was tragic.

And despite my earlier determination to try and accept the ramifications of my new life now, it made me want to be sick.

 _Why Aro? Is this sacrifice really necessary? Is killing really okay if there is another way?_ I questioned skeptically, my throat surging with bile as I looked upon the tear-stained face of my own victim amid the fleshy tomb of her fallen fellows. _Couldn't we extract blood without killing them? Dine on bagged blood instead?_ I reasoned, feeling nauseous. I clapped my hands over my mouth to prevent anything precious from spilling out of it as I my intestines tremored with guilt. The enormous tidal wave of self-loathing I'd been fighting back these past two months threatened to wash over me again.

In another few seconds, however, my full stomach settled as the jarring sight of the human's torn, bloodless bodies was removed from my vision. The circular iron grate was removed from its resting place in a depression in the middle of the floor and all seventy-five lifeless figures were quickly shoved into the pit beneath it—which was so deep I only heard the tiniest of thuds when the heavy clumps of dead flesh came in contact with the bottom of it.

I shuddered as my sadistic imagination conjured up a plethora of equally nauseating ideas of what became of our victims after they were deposited there. Were the bodies simply left to rot underground? _No, after thousands of years we would definitely have run out of space down there, not the mention the smell…_ I logically deduced, choking audibly in disgust. _Did they burn them?_ I wondered next. And if so, was there a particular reason they weren't simply incinerating them now, like Caius was currently doing to the pile of ruined garments?

I had no idea.

In Aro's memories I saw him and Carlisle dissect a few… _Perhaps _he has a secret lab down there and he still runs experiments on them?__ I pondered, trying not to imagine that scenario in more vivid detail than necessary as I watched the last body get dumped unceremoniously into the cavernous darkness below. _That's kind of demented…_

The grate on the floor was replaced with a loud, reverberating clang, jolting me from my theoretical musings, and immediately my attention was brought back towards the pile of glittering goods. I was disturbed to notice the guard was now passionately arguing over it, despite Demetri's verbal insistence that Aro would oversee the acquisitions before anyone could claim anything for their own. Alice had joined the foray now, vehemently arguing with Heidi over a pretty silver necklace, Chen was greedily scooping up all the spare currency into his jacket pockets with a goofy grin on his face, and Corin's red-haired mate discretely nabbed the pair of wedding bands the married couple I'd seen get torn apart had been wearing earlier. The whole scene was lawless and avaricious, and I was surprised to watch the normally serious and disciplined coven descend into such childish behavior all of a sudden over such a pathetic stash.

I could imagine those kind of actions if the treasure being fought over was actually of significant value, but seeing how the Volturi were ludicrously wealthy and thought that diamonds were something you put in _soap_ of all things, none of the things found in the pile today should have even registered as having any worth at all. Even the fanciest of items, probably the multi-thousand dollar professional camera which Afton was invisibly (to everyone but me) sneaking off with, was affordable like pocket change to them, and so the sudden fuss over all this junk was baffling to me.

Not to mention that it felt horribly disrespectful to the people who had owned it only a few minutes prior.

I mean really, was a shiny golden Rollex watch worth more than a human life? The idea made me very seriously reconsider my recent mantra. _Maybe killing people was not so okay... maybe my first instincts were right..._ I thought as I watched the guard ferociously argue over various cheap baubles and trinkets. _This is disgusting..._

Demetri was hollering the whole time I was watching with dismay at the few people he'd caught making off with unauthorized goodies. But it was Caius, who was still tightly clutching the flaming torch he'd used to reduce the pile of shredded clothing to ashes, who was the only one that was finally able to break up the chaos.

With a threatening wave of his fire-bearing hands, he commanded that everyone put back what they'd skived off the pile. Instantly the guard decided to drop whatever they'd latched their pale, greedy fingers onto in favor of putting as much distance between them and being set ablaze as possible. The snowy-haired vampire's hostile, icy words terrified me, as did the lethal weapon in his brutal hands. But once all but the sneakiest of thieves had scampered away empty-handed from the irate, flame-wielding coven co-leader, Caius immediately desisted.

I realized that his "threat" was just a bluff. He was never actually planning on setting anyone on fire, no matter how much the sadistic vampire would enjoy watching them smolder. Aro certainly would be livid if he did, and if I had learned one thing in the training room today, it was never worth it to earn _his_ ire.

Not all the other vampires were so keen to realize that Caius was bluffing, however, and as soon as he had put out his torch and turned his back on the guard, several of the less intelligent, transitory strength-type members decided to charge him from behind, their deadly digits reaching for his head with genuinely murderous intent. My mouth gaped open in horror as I witnessed the beginnings of what looked like a legitimate death match, aghast at the fact that such a petty squabble over a few meaningless scraps had escalated so quickly.

But two things happened almost simultaneously that thankfully prevented any such thing from going down. Renata caught sight of the impending confrontation at the same time I did and expertly directed her abilities towards the man closest to Caius and confused him into running in the other direction within seconds. And Chelsea floated forward into the center of the room and shut her eyes tightly as if in deep focus, which somehow caused the other two pursuers to stop dead in their tracks.

At first the results of the second woman's actions were strange to me: her powers were only emotional, and couldn't effect motor functions like Renata's, so why the men had suddenly halted initially made no sense. As Chelsea expanded the range of her concentration, though, stretching it from a small circle around the three men seeking after Caius to a large sphere that encompassed the entire room, I too began to experience the effects of her gift and understood why those men had reacted that way.

I froze as an invisible blanket of cold, prickly air slowly descended over me, warming slightly as it wrapped tightly around my heart. It was an oddly familiar sensation, one that I swore I'd felt when I was struggling through my feelings about Edward earlier. And had the feeling not totally consumed me, I might have felt reason to panic over that fact (I'd had enough emotional manipulation where he was involved, thank you very much). As it was, though, I was far too absorbed in the influx of emotions that accompanied the shift to worry about whether or not Chelsea had been any part in my letting go of my love for Edward.

As the cold feeling intensified, I began to remember the promises I had made earlier. Especially the commitments that tied me to this organization, and specifically to Aro himself. The feeling warmed and tightened around my heart after a few seconds and I felt my resolve to honor these bonds increase. Suddenly the pile of objects I had watched the others juvenilely quarrel over was unimportant, as were my earlier feelings of disgust about participating in such a revolting activity as wholesale human slaughter, and my reservations about trusting that Caius wouldn't just slaughter us for the hell of it.

Aro, and my ability to be of service to him in the upcoming confrontation became all that mattered.

And judging by the range of guilty looks I saw flickering across the faces of many of the guard members as Chelsea held her eyes securely shut, I figured that they were beginning to remember their bond to him as well, and consider how their recent actions had been somewhat reprehensible. Their master had disappeared for all of about five seconds and immediately they were all impatiently clamoring for pitiful treasures.

And while I hadn't shared their misconduct, I too began to feel a twinge of guilt for doubting Aro's abilities to lead us to victory. For mistrusting his judgment when it came to inducting Jasper into his coven. And for being angry at him for only allowing me to predate on live humans.

 _Surely he had his reasons_ … came the feeling to me, burning with an unexpected fierceness... _Surely, he knew better than I what would ultimately yield the best outcome for everyone_ … He had been basically running the supernatural world for at least the last fifteen hundred years, since he'd usurped power from the Romanians… _so I ought to defer to his better judgment, right?_ I began to be convinced.

I took a deep breath and released the tension that had accumulated in my shoulders, exhaling away all my former skepticism and discomfort about the grim realities of belonging to the Volturi— _Aro knows what he is doing_ , I was reassured by the fiery blanket engulfing my emotions. _Everything will be alright as long as you listen to him,_ I felt all of a sudden, and yet I found myself bobbing my head in agreement with the foreign sentiment. _Trust him._

Just as I began to accept these strange new feelings however, the blazing manacles on my feelings fell away and Chelsea opened her bright red eyes. She cautiously surveyed the room around her, reminding me of her powers, and the fact that she had just exerted them on all of us. Which meant that my sudden rush of goodwill towards Aro had been totally false.

As with Jasper's power, I resented the idea of having my feelings manipulated. But I found as I struggled to eradicate the feelings of increased fealty from my heart that they were putting up a measurable resistance. With great effort I could scrounge back up some of my earlier anger towards him, but those feelings didn't have any lasting power, and were subordinate to my newfound desire to follow him. Thankfully I wasn't feeling worshipful by any means, I still regarded Aro as a man who was fundamentally flawed in a lot of ways and remained capable of intellectually complaining about my gripes. But the idea of deserting the Volturi because of said gripes was suddenly not an option anymore.

Where my only motivation to fight with them before had been because of a desire to protect greater humanity, the entire vampire race and the world from an enormous disaster, I now had a second reason: Because stopping the newborn threat before it exposed vampires to the world would be what Aro wanted; what would keep him safe.

The difference in motives from a practical standpoint actually wasn't huge. Wanting to be aligned with the Volturi for now because Alice had assured me it would be the greatest net benefit to the world if I participated in the upcoming confrontation, versus wanting to be aligned with them in order to protect Aro and his guard too, wasn't a momentous switch. I had already begun to feel a small degree of those feelings of kinship on my own, at least with a few individual members, like Felix, who'd been my chaperone during my early trips outside the castle. Chelsea seemed to just have accelerated the natural process a little, with extra focus on the leader of our coven.

And even though I disliked the fact that he was slightly insane and not always very considerate of my feelings since they were a mystery to him, I knew he wasn't basically the ruler of all things mythical for no reason. Trusting him would probably be a safe move. Actually, all things considered, following him right now rather than raising undue fuss about things like feeding on humans—things he'd already patiently spent months (longer than anyone else was comfortable with) allowing me to come to terms with—was probably the best thing to do at least until I made sure no one was going to drop a nuclear bomb on Seattle.

We could maybe negotiate a different diet for myself after I had made sure everyone was safe.

But right now I had more urgent things to worry about than whether I ate a few strangers in the meantime.

Like Felix tapping impatiently on my shoulder and tersely requesting that I retire to my quarters so that he could invite the maids in to finish the rest of the cleanup. Apparently he didn't trust me, the savage newborn, to not try and devour the poor women, despite how recently I had sated my thirst. But I was much more concerned that he was involving more humans in the slaughter of their kin to be offended by his understandable mistrust.

"Wait… you're going to bring _humans_ in here?" I said incredulously.

My crimson eyes flickered over the beads of blood littered sparsely over the floor, accompanied by a few small puddles and an errant chunk of skin or two lying here and there atop the ancient stones. The idea of letting any mortals in here to see even this—the unsavory aftermath—made the temporary flush in my cheeks whiten for a few seconds.

"That's why I need you to leave," Felix repeated with a patient sigh. "The maids are not food. And unlike the secretaries whose contracts are limited…" he said with an unusual amount of distaste, as though this fact actually perturbed him for some reason, "…the maids' do not need to be," he reminded me—a fact I had learned from Aro's memories but had forgotten amidst the subsequent drama that had followed them. "Because the maids are not aware of our true natures, they can live out their entire natural lifespan… unless Aro decides otherwise," he concluded hesitantly, making it clear that these employees were far from _guaranteed_ to survive until they died of natural causes. But barring exceptional circumstances that was the general idea.

I swallowed uncomfortably as I remembered what Aro had offered on my first day as a vampire— _Ah, but we have maids and secretaries_ , he had said when I had asked where he would procure additional sustenance from. And later: _The understanding is, of course, that if they fail, they are the alternative,_ he had explained when I had asked what motivated Francesca to help Heidi find us food. Clearly, it was not an unduly uncommon occurrence for those in Aro's employ to be substituted as food, but with Aro's decision to take Jasper hunting outside city limits, I wondered at just how rare it really was. Perhaps Aro made a greater effort than I had initially presumed to preserve the lives of those who worked for him, even if it was only because it was a pain to replace them too soon. That was a weirdly comforting thought.

But really, the fact that he occasionally had his employees eaten wasn't what perturbed me anymore—that was practically a no-brainer, given the "change or die" ultimatum he had in place when it came to knowing about the existence of vampires.

"I get that," I affirmed aloud, a little vexed that everyone seemed to thing I was aghast at the part of this situation that made the most sense. "But what I don't get is why you're going to make human beings clean up after human death!" I barked out acidly, furious with the cruelty they were forcing on these people.

This was just like the secretaries being involved in Heidi's "fishing". Killing humans as a vampire was one thing. But even _that_ was merciful in comparison to compelling humans to participate in the slaughter of other humans. Did every human here live with the threat that they had to comply with and even assist partially in causing the death of others of their own kind or their own life was forfeit?

"How do you think they're going to feel when they mop up human blood and sweep up human skin, knowing full-well that they could be next?" I asked angrily, demanding that Felix feel some modicum of pity for these soon-to-be-traumatized people.

Instead, Felix merely looked confused. "They clean up stuff like this all the time. Besides, this is _nothing_ compared to the mess you left them when you first ate," he said offhandedly and utterly without malice, like my carelessness in feeding was completely unimportant to him.

I froze in absolute horror— _the maids_ took care of that god-awful mess?

I tried to imagine a bunch of wrinkly old ladies (my brain's stereotypical depiction of maids) cheerily wiping away the huge puddle of blood I had left on the floor, scrubbing at the dried splatters stuck on the walls and throwing the dirty sheets into the laundry, but the image never quite achieved the domesticity I was aiming for. I just couldn't imagine that anyone human could manage cleaning such a terrible scene without throwing up and feeling partially complicit in the dastardly crime. It had to be impossible, I reasoned, because there was no way I could ever do it.

Felix, however, only began to look upset when he saw my reaction. "Isabella, you do not need to fret about that any longer. It is completely understandable that you were a little clumsy, being a newborn," he placated.

He placed one of his massive hands softly on my shoulder, to indicate that anymore guilt over causing so much waste was completely unnecessary. "And cleaning up messes like that is precisely what the maids are paid to do," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Reluctantly I nodded to indicate that understood. Suddenly, though I realized that there was still one part of this puzzle that didn't quite make sense, and my curiosity reasserted itself.

"And they really have no idea that you guys are vampires?" I asked, totally baffled that Aro was able to keep the maids in the dark when they saw so much evidence of what he truly was all around them on a regular basis. I mean… weren't the huge puddles of blood and the patterns of stains on the clothing they washed revealing enough?

Felix shrugged his hulking shoulders apathetically. "Maybe they suspect something," he tossed the idea out there like it was a one in a million chance. "But Aro never told them what we are outright and they never actually see us eat. They just know we do not age, we glow a little in bright light and we leave a lot of bloody messes. Lots of folkloric creatures could match that description," he finished, lowering the enormous hand he'd placed on my shoulder back to his sides.

I blinked in response to his casual mention of mythology, and once again, my need to know overwhelmed me. "Like what?"

Felix considered my question for a moment, angling his head towards the ceiling before he said, "Ljósálfar, for one."

"What?" I had never heard of anything like that before, of course the word was probably ancient and definitely not English, so that was understandable.

"Light elves from Norse mythology," Felix quickly clarified, surprising me with his awareness of various culture's legendary creatures—I guess I hadn't really pegged the combative giant for the literary type. "They are said to have glowing skin, but are not always nice," he further illustrated, raising a hand to his left so that it caught in one of the patches of sunlight, throwing rainbows in every direction, before he tightly clenched it into a fist.

His contracting fingers made me shiver—I could only imagine someone's arm being crushed to dust between them.

"But you don't have pointy ears…" I noted, halfway as a joke, and halfway as a serious question.

Felix's bloody lips split into a dazzling smile and he released a slight chuckle. "That's all Tolkien. In early legends, elves had normal ears—just otherworldly beauty," he explained with a humored expression, clearly gaining considerable amusement from my ignorance.

"Oh," I breathed out, suddenly feeling very stupid. Real vampires didn't have their "signature" fangs, so why should real elves have pointy ears—both were probably just human attempts to "otherize" inhuman creatures to try to distance themselves from them.

"But… there aren't really any elves out there… are there?" I enquired, seriously interested by the possibility.

"Not that I know of," Felix admitted with a subtle shake of his head, and I was surprised to find myself substantially relieved rather than disappointed to not have to deal with becoming acquainted with yet another type of supernatural being. "Personally I think that legend was just another left-over from when we were more open about appearing in the sunlight. But there are lots of other legends that are true," he assured me upon seeing my put-out expression.

"Not just werewolves, shape-shifters, vampires and witches?" I probed eagerly. _What more could this tiny blue planet really handle? I mean, if there were too many supernatural beings hiding among the human population, wouldn't exposure be inevitable?_

"Yes and no. But Aro knows a lot more about that sort of thing than me…" Felix answered, somewhat hesitant about the sudden tangent our conversation was taking, and evidently intent on deferring me to speak with his master later. But I wasn't going to have any of it—I wanted an answer now.

Seeing my staunchly crossed arms and impatiently tapping feet, clearly indicating that I wasn't going to budge until Felix at least offered a rudimentary explanation for his words, he sighed heavily and offered: "Vampires and Children of the moon, or 'werewolves' are the only sentient creatures truly distinct from humankind."

 _So there weren't any hobbits or fairies going to pop out of little holes in the ground somewhere. Well that was relief,_ I thought, releasing a small pocket of air I'd been holding in anticipation for the big blow to my already hopelessly warped reality. I wasn't sure if I could take any more big surprises after all the convoluted secrets and lies that had been rapidly exposed to me only two months ago—my world was already upside-down enough as it was. I didn't need any other mythological creatures interjecting and messing it up even further.

"Both of our species are only capable of breeding with our own," Felix rushed on academically, clearly precluding the possibility of any hybrids between them or with humankind. Which was also a relief, (I couldn't imagine that a half-vampire/half-werewolf would be a pleasant combination).

"And both species are capable of using bites to turn humans into their own kind with some form of venom," he clarified.

I knew all about vampire transformation, having lived through it three times now (once as myself and the other times as Carlisle and Edward). So his words conjured up a horrible image of some savage wolf-like creature carving into an unsuspecting human and leaving them to writhe in pain for days until they too became monstrous.

Being extremely eager, judging by his flickering glances towards the room's exit, to finish sating my curiosity so that he could get me to leave as quickly as possible, Felix suddenly switched topics, "Witches and shape-shifters on the other hand, are not distinct—that is, they are simply humans with unusually strong powers, and can interbreed with normal humans without consequences."

I quickly nodded to indicate that I understood. _I'd gathered that much—the Quileutes seemed to have no problem procreating with non-shape-shifters, and Jacob's rather persistent advances had indicated that he hoped to solidify a possibly fertile relationship between us. We'd never gotten very far, however…_

"A "witch" is a generic term for any person who can use objects to cast spells and "shape-shifter" is a term for anyone that can leave or alter their human body. Not all witches share Aria's specific gifts—those from other clans have different specialties—and not all shape-shifters turn into wolves," Felix further proliferated.

His teeth gritted in frustration as the rest of the guard began to absently file out of the room and I was not among them.

"I met a tribe who could turn into hyenas and another who could change into dolphins," he offhandedly referenced like it was no big deal. But this information was mind-boggling.

 _What tribes?_ I was itching to ask. Then I began wondering if there was something magical about belonging to a non-sedentary, non-agricultural society, or if the tribal factor was merely a coincidence. The way he said it made me assume that all shape-shifting powers were genetic, like Jacob's, so maybe he was just using "tribe" like he was using "clan" for witches, to reference a family group who shared gifts.

There were so many things I wanted to ask, but the question I ended up choosing to posit was a little more to the core of the matter, I thought. "But if witches and shape-shifters are just humans… how come everyone can't use magical powers or change shape?" I asked bewilderedly—certainly if powers like that were ubiquitous, they wouldn't need to be secret, I deduced logically.

"Not everyone can read minds, or see the future, or block mental powers either," Felix elucidated in a huff. He referenced my powers, Alice's and Aro's with a tenor of cold envy that suggested he felt a bit slighted for not possessing a gift of his own.

I wasn't given any time to feel any measure of pity for him, however, because he kept talking without the slightest of pauses. "We have no clue where these talents come from, or why some possess them and some do not," he revealed with a snarl of frustration that was more directed at me for launching so many unanswerable inquiries than towards his lack of this pivotal knowledge itself. "…but all these powers are in the same vein, so to speak, and all are triggered by vampire venom."

My delicate brown eyebrows raised at his last remark. "Triggered?"

"Your power should be stronger now that you've been made into a vampire," he curtly contributed.

His eyes flickered irritably again towards the exit as the secret panel was slid back into place after all the other vampires had departed besides us. Then he started clicking his teeth vexatedly together and rocking impatiently back and forth on his huge feet as the soft footfalls of our immortal companions disappeared down the hallway.

" _Almost_ all gifts work that way," he said snappishly with a peculiarly strong emphasis on the "almost" that gave me the impression that he actually meant something like 99%. "But some are so potent in their human form that they can fully manifest only in _proximity_ to venom. The shape-shifters in Forks did this is response to the Cullens, yes?"

I was a little taken aback that he knew about them and the fact that their powers activated in response to vampires in the area. I guessed Aro must have filled everyone in after Alice unexpectedly introduced them to the guard in the throne room earlier, so I nodded vigorously, not wanting to stall Felix any longer than necessary.

"Shape-shifters and witches are the same in that regard: their abilities are triggered by the presence of our kind," he supplied further. "The presence of Children of the Moon doesn't typically garner the same reaction, however because their venom is dormant during most of the month when they're in their human state, and relatively constant exposure is required for a change..."

"Though Aria was probably triggered by one, given the waxing and waning of her powers," he chipped in as an interesting tidbit.

Then he seemed to recall that he had neglected to mention something important and hissed under his breath before he swiftly said: "Werewolf venom is also different in other ways… " I noted that he didn't specify exactly how, though his next statement clarified why: "But we haven't been able to study it much, since the extermination order was set in place…"

 _Oh right… after one took Caius' arm off and it was determined that they couldn't be controlled on the full moon, Aro ordered that they all be killed on sight,_ I remembered from one of Aro's memories during Carlisle's stay in Volterra. _Tearing them apart and burning the pieces immediately would kind of make scientific observations of them difficult…_ I mused, figuring that if the savage wolves also carried a strain of venom that they would probably need to be exterminated in a manner similar to vampires.

"They're mostly extinct, though, right?" I asked for clarification, hoping that Caius had been thorough enough in his efforts to wipe the untamable beasts off the face of the earth that I would never have to encounter one as long as I lived.

Based on the paltry descriptions I'd been given, they sounded like hellish, mutant demons who couldn't reign in their hunger for human flesh when they involuntarily transformed, and thus were unable to remain inconspicuous when they killed, opening slaughtering people in public and leaving lots of terrified witnesses for the Volturi to deal with. And I really had no desire to contend with anything like that—fighting other vampires was one thing, trying to tackle and decapitate a huge, rabid wolf-man-monster didn't sound easy, and if _Caius,_ of all people, had lost an arm in the attempt…

There was no way I was going to come away from that fight alive, my newborn strength notwithstanding.

"A few still live in remote corners of the world—but they have been eradicated from all of Europe, and North America as far as I can tell," Felix hurriedly offered to placate my fears, before he floated back a step and inclined his head eagerly towards the concealed wooden door on the other side of the room. "You have no reason to worry about encountering one."

"Anything else I should know?" I probed.

I reached tentatively out to stop him as he slowly turned around and began inching backwards towards the door as a clear sign that he wanted this conversation to be over.

" _Please,_ Felix?" I implored, clasping my hands in front of my blood-spotted leather jacket and shaking them back and forth slightly. "No one else will tell me anything," I complained, mustering up as much desperation as I could manage in my voice to try and convince him to stay a little longer and reveal just a little more. "What if my ignorance gets me killed?!"

Felix stiffened as I mentioned the possibility of death and immediately whirled around on his heels to face me again. "Do _not_ try to drink blood from anyone who is not a regular human!" he abruptly commanded, without any preface or warning. "Some bloodlines of witches and shape-shifters are poisonous, and if you do not spit it out immediately, it will seep into your tissues and eat them away like acid. There's nothing we can do for you then," he lamented with a startling degree of finality in his voice. "Your skin will get completely eaten in a few years and you'll die."

I gasped— _some witches and shape-shifters were_ that _poisonous? And by his implication, I assumed some weren't?_ "But how will I know?" I demanded urgently.

I wasn't really intending on consuming someone I obviously knew to be supernaturally gifted in that sense. But I worried that with their almost identical physical appearance to regular humans most of the time, I might foolishly make a lethal mistake if Aro ever asked me to hunt humans on my own.

"Well, regardless of whether they are poisonous or not, the blood of witches and shifters smells disgusting," Felix spat like the words themselves tasted like gravel and I immediately knew from his contorted facial expression that he had personal experience with the unpleasant olfactory sensation. "So as long as you stay well fed you won't want it," he offered as incentive to not unduly starve myself. "The dolphin shifters smelled fishy, like rancid seaweed and your friend Alice described the wolves as smelling like wet dog," he said by way of explanation.

I instinctively wrinkled my nose at the foul odors he was describing—there was no way I would want to consume anything that smelled like _that_. Not unless I had no other choice.

"Anything el—?" I began to enquire before we were rudely interrupted by a hasty clattering of high-heeled shoes and a tentative knock on the hidden door. The knocker was human from the unsteady sound of their approach, and also from the warm, deliciously salty smell I registered emanating from that area. Another foolishly interjecting receptionist, I figured.

Unlike last time, though, I felt no burning compulsion to take off running towards her with murderous intent—the scent of _this_ secretary was different. And while the smell made me salivate a little and dimly the bestial side of me thought that feeding on her would be a pleasant experience, this part of me was easily silenced by the rational portion of my brain. Thanks to my recent meal, I wasn't hungry anymore, so any additional eating would be wasteful at this point. My throat felt fine, and without any pressing need to hunt, I stayed precisely where I was, nervously looking towards Felix to see how he might respond to the heavenly aroma wafting through the insubstantial concealed entrance.

Felix immediately blanched upon hearing the ungraceful noises of this intruding secretary, and his whole body hardened into a rigid line as his bright red eyes widened in sheer horror. After a split-second of silently freaking out, the hulking man spontaneously darted to restrain me, easily wrestling my unprepared, unresisting wrists into his firm, nearly crushing grasp.

He frantically shouted at the noises beyond these curved stone walls: "Gianna, what are you doing?"

 _Gianna was the one behind the door?_ I didn't recognize her scent because I hadn't interacted with her since my transformation for… ahem… _safety reasons._ But now that I had connected the aroma with a face, I was certain that I could never mistake the unique flavor for anyone else ever again. My impeccable memory would make sure of that.

The shaking hands trying to delicately slide open the hidden oak panel along the wall that protected this room from being discovered unwittingly by any malicious visitors, halted briefly in response to Felix's sharp injunction, before they gradually, audibly resumed their task. Felix's eyebrows practically shot off his face as he realized that Gianna was ultimately ignoring his advice, and he shrieked at her again, this time in Italian as he curled his enormous fingers tighter around my slender wrists. " _Gianna! Prego uscire! Correre!"*_

There was a soft _click_ as the woman on the other side turned the handle of the hidden door, which made Felix scream louder. " _Gianna!"_ he cried this time, even more desperate as the entrance door slowly began to swing open, despite his words. " _La nueva vampira vuole mangiare te_!"** he bellowed rawly, like the idea of the warning behind his words coming true cut him to very core.

And although I had no idea precisely what he was saying, I had a fairly good suspicion that "la nueva vampira" was referring to me—the supposed-to-be-crazy newborn—and the rest of his broken plea had something to do with the fact that I might decide to make the poor secretary into a second course, despite the fact that I harbored no such intentions.

The woman I'd seen before, the green-eyed, tan-skinned, traditional Italian beauty nervously waddled into the room in her ridiculously high black heels. Her frightened gaze slowly fell upon the vision of me and Felix tangled in a violent-appearing manner in the center of the dusty, sparsely bloodied room. This made her freeze in place just over the threshold, looking very uncertain about whether her next step should be forwards or backwards.

"I won't hurt her, Felix!" I protested. "I'm not hungry!"

I struggled out of Felix's restraining hands with little effort and crisscrossed my hands forbiddingly over my chest in a definitive "no" gesture to punctuate my point.

Instead of feeling assured though, Felix panicked for a fraction of a second as he realized that I had had wriggled out of his grasp. But the remarkable stillness that he saw in my frame as I calmly stood only a few feet away from him, ready and willing to be recaptured if that would put him at further ease, made him stop.

For a few more nearly imperceptible moments (moments which would have been utterly invisible to Gianna) Felix simply stared at me in total incomprehension, like what I was doing—not bolting after Gianna and tearing into her throat—was somehow fundamentally breaking the laws of physics or something. But I didn't understand his astonishment at all, I hadn't lied to him: I wasn't hungry—I had just eaten. Plenty. There was no logical reason for me to thirst now.

Or so I thought.

But judging by Felix's incredibly dubious expression perhaps newborns were supposed to behave differently, I pondered, Perhaps all human blood was supposed to be maddening to newborns right now, only two months after their transformation, regardless of whether their thirst was sated or not. Jasper had hinted at as much when the topic of newborns had come up. But again, I didn't have the slightest clue of what to expect, because other than a few vague descriptions of burning throats and the act of drinking human blood being incredibly pleasurable, no one had bothered to sit me down and tell me how these things were supposed to work—what was normal as far as vampires went.

I understood that most of the guard had more pressing things on their minds—like trying to make sure that they didn't perish in the battle in June—than teaching the newly transformed vampire about stuff that probably seemed ludicrously obvious to them. However, even with my artificially increased feelings of trust in Aro, I was a little disconcerted that my education in these matters had been so completely neglected.

After a few seconds of Felix just standing there, petrified in shock, I felt as though I needed to speak again. To perhaps revive him from his stony stupor as he struggled to believe that I really had enough self-possession right now not to dart after and devour the receptionist if she were to come any further in.

"Felix, it's okay…" I said soothingly, lowering my hands in a subtle "calm-down" gesture. Gradually, I took a few steps back towards the ornately carved thrones, away from the entrance as a show of good faith.

Felix and Gianna both intently watched the combat-scuffed soles of my leather boots as I walked backwards and waited nervously for a minute or so as I slunk back into the shadows. They shared a brief exchange of surprised glances, as though they expected me to rapidly change my mind at a moment's notice.

To further calm their fears, I plopped myself down atop the dais steps leading up to the chairs reserved for my leaders, and delicately crossed my legs while I wanted it to be clear that I wasn't planning on hurting anyone and they need not worry about my presence while they discussed… well whatever it was that Gianna had come to relay to Felix.

Felix blinked in total stupefaction as he registered my decision, and Gianna slowly toed off her hazardous footwear, just in case, but she seemed to have keen enough instincts to realize that I posed her no immediate danger. And so after a moment's hesitation, Gianna bolted forward towards the giant, stiff statue of a vampire standing in the middle of the room.

She padded across the stone floors as quickly as she could, her movements awkward and slow like molasses. Especially as she tried to evade the occasional smattering of scarlet droplets here and there, not being particularly keen on the idea of having the sticky fluid seep through the feet of her sheer nylons.

Felix, of course, recognized that she had decided to approach him about the same time I did. Instead of voicing another protest, he simply minutely adjusted his stance to place himself between me and the woman so that I wouldn't have a straight shot if I were to suddenly sprint. Then he contracted his muscles defensively while he waited for her to reach him.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally crossed the remarkably short distance between the concealed entrance and the inset iron grate that Felix stood beside. Unexpectedly, she then leapt up into the air, passionately flinging her tiny-by-comparison arms around the colossal man's shoulders.

Felix seemed a little stunned by this gesture for a nanosecond, but responded almost immediately by returning her embrace with equal enthusiasm before quickly dipping his head down. As his head rotated on his neck and his mouth descended at the same, agonizing snail's pace that Gianna had jogged to him at, I froze in horror for a second as I believed that Felix was about to bury his pearly white teeth into her beautiful, unmarred jugular vein, despite expressing significant protests towards me doing that very thing.

My own neck tingled a little as I thought about the delight he could gain from such an action, especially as her long, wavy hair tossed in response to her ungraceful jump, throwing her warm, salty scent into the air. But this feeling was easily quelled, thanks to the woman I had eaten earlier and instead replaced with panic. I didn't know this woman hardly at all, but she seemed genuinely nice and certainly had done nothing worthy of death, so I opened my mouth to scream at him to not eat her.

However, as Felix moved downwards, he abruptly stopped short of reaching so low as the woman's tempting throat. Instead, he deposited an unbelievably gentle, chaste peck on Gianna's plump, pink lips.

Wait… _What?_

A kiss?

Felix pulled back immediately from the short, amorous gesture, not lingering probably in part because I was still present. But his bright red eyes stayed firmly locked on the woman before him, like she was the only person in who existed in this world right now.

Gianna was struggling quite a bit while they embraced to hold herself high enough up on Felix's huge, towering person to keep her head level with his. So after a moment she adjusted her position, hiking up the skirt of her above-the-knee, tight black dress and wrapped her shapely, nylon-bearing legs securely around his broad hips. Felix aided her in her efforts, sliding one hand tenderly down to grasp the small of her back, before he took advantage of her newly fastened position by leaning forward and kissing her again, this one quite a bit longer and a lot more sensual than I had expected for a public display.

Most of that was Gianna's fault, actually—Felix tried to pull away again after a relatively short (by human standards) period of time. But Gianna surprised me by gripping Felix's stony lips between her teeth to prevent them from slipping away from her, an action which would have sawed off his lower lip had she been an immortal like me, but which probably didn't even really hurt because of her mortality. Felix was a little startled by the feeling of blunt human teeth pulling against his unyielding skin. But he automatically responded by giving the woman fiercely clutching the collar of his leather combat jacket, exactly what she wanted—a deep, dizzying, kiss that suddenly involved a lot more tongue than I had really wanted to see.

I was about to turn away, worried that the couple might go on forever, when I recalled from my own experiences in a vampire-human romance, that there were certain human limitations that restricted their ability to make out for eternity. Of course, eventually the woman had to let go—she, unlike Felix, had to breathe—and so after a minute or so, she drew back from his mouth panting, wheezing almost with how completely winded she sounded. Her cheeks were flushed a dark rosy red, matching the flush of blood still resting in Felix's cheeks from feeding. And after a moment she giggled, flirtatious and naughty, like their physical affection was something of a forbidden fruit.

And in that moment, I suddenly realized that it probably was.

Of course it was practically impossible to keep secrets from Aro, let alone one like this. Not only would Aro see the experiences in Felix's and Gianna's thoughts, but if the two were really as attached to one another as their sudden display indicated, then Marcus had probably picked up on it with his gift too. So the couple couldn't be keeping Aro in the dark about their relationship.

Knowing how Aro operated things with the secretaries, though, I couldn't imagine that he was entirely pleased with the situation. Changing Gianna into a vampire was probably was what both she and Felix would want to have happen, especially when their only alternative was her death, now that she knew about the existence of vampires. Based on her position as the sort of head of the seven, talented, fragile women, I knew that he appreciated her a lot, and that she could possibly still prove useful to him in some way as a vampire. So her transformation on its own probably would not upset Aro...

...But her decision would not be made in isolation.

Aro never intended to transform any of the secretaries he employed—it wasn't in their contracts. And as far as I could tell, judging by the fact that none of the Volturi members were former human workers of his, he had never wavered on this principle for thousands of years. That way, when their number was up, he could claim complete consistency, and that any delusions his secretaries might develop of continuing their existence in another form after their allotted time with him, were completely unfounded.

But if Gianna broke the trend, rising to immortality by becoming the mate of one of the currently single male members of the guard, then her story of success would shatter Aro's tidy regime. Every secretary from thenceforth would start throwing herself at the next eligible vampire bachelor in hopes of following in her footsteps.

It would be total chaos, I realized with a lamenting sigh.

But judging by the way Felix and Gianna were holding each other now, and whispering sweet things to one another in Italian as they rubbed their noses together, they really loved one another—in a true and forever kind of love that had been distinctly lacking from my relationship with Edward. When I'd first arrived and seen Felix wink at Gianna as he passed the receptionist's desk, I had thought he was just being goofy, or perhaps more maliciously toying with the girl's feelings for his own amusement. But it was obvious now that her attraction to him wasn't entirely one-sided, as I had originally supposed.

Felix liked her back… a lot.

And now his demand that I leave the room, and his earlier stiffening when Alice had mentioned the possibility of Jasper devouring Gianna made complete sense. Aro might not particularly like his secretaries to be indisposed before their time was up, and would seek to avoid it when that was at all possible for practicality's sake, but he would not be soul-crushed if the savage newborn accidentally killed one or two—they were all going to perish soon enough anyway.

But Felix would be utterly devastated. If I or anyone else were to sink their teeth in to his precious Gianna…?

I shuddered to think of what he might do in order to avenge her.

 _That is, eventually what Aro plans to have happen to her, though,_ my rational brain reminded me. And I trembled in horror as I realized that it was right—Gianna was living on borrowed time; time that had a very specific limit and was probably rapidly running out. Whatever happened to her, whether Aro compassionately allowed her to be spared from being made into an incidental snack for Felix's sake, or whether he decided that she needed to die to uphold the status quo, even if that risked turning Felix against him, that pivotal decision needed to be made soon.

I cleared my throat, causing both pairs of eyes, green and red to swivel back to face me, before I hesitantly asked of the pair the most important, in my mind, of all questions I could about their relationship. "How long does she have?"

Felix understood my meaning immediately and his eyes darkened with a profound, heart-breaking sadness. He slowly set Gianna back on her own two feet before he gloomily answered. "Only one more year. Aro never keeps them longer than ten."

 _Ten years is more generous than I thought…_ But I knew to Felix a mere decade with his other-half would be a cruel and unusual punishment indeed. He cared for her more than life itself.

"Do you love her?" I already knew the answer to that, but I had to ask; to hear him admit the depth of his feelings aloud with his own two lips.

Felix's response was automatic and completely genuine. "Yes."

"Does he know?" I queried hesitantly, quickly rising from my seat on the dais steps.

Again, Felix instantly comprehended what I was referring to without my being terribly specific—of course the only other " _he"_ that mattered in this delicate situation was the one who called all the shots around here: Aro.

"He must… I have shown him my thoughts many times since I began to feel this way," Felix deduced in a solemn voice. He hugged Gianna defensively into his chest as if to protect her from the man he was speaking about.

Felix's uncertainty about Aro's knowledge of their little forbidden romance stunned me—I had been almost certain that Aro would have either magnanimously given his blessing or condemned their relationship by now.

"Has he said anything?"

"He hopes that my feelings will change…" Felix revealed distastefully, his huge frame quivering slightly with revulsion at the idea. "That when her time comes that I will not desire her any longer…" he trailed off with no small measure of horror in his voice as he tried and failed to fathom what his life would be without her.

My crimson eyes swam with panic and indignation. _How can Aro be so dismissive of their love?_

Seeing my reaction, Felix abruptly picked up again in a slightly more optimistic tone. "But he has promised that if I still love her when her contract is over, that I may change her."

 _So that was the compromise they'd decided on. Aro wanted to make sure that Felix's feelings would endure before Gianna was changed and stuck with him for eternity. I guess that was not entirely unreasonable demand,_ I decided after a little deliberation.

But I couldn't help but feel that Aro's primary reason for instituting this agreement was that he was stalling, waiting for a better, third option to present itself. An option that could allow him to not offend or lose Felix, and maintain his current system of temporary secretarial workers whom he killed once they served their purposes, and who didn't waste their time and resources flirting to try and escape their fate rather than doing their jobs.

Whether Gianna lived or died was not of tantamount importance to him… but he could hardly simply eradicate her himself without earning the ire of Felix and being forced to kill one of the most brutally powerful members of the guard. Waiting was a much better alternative for the moment.

Still… there were negative consequences of Aro's decision to stall—leaving Gianna as a human was risky because in her vulnerable state, especially given her highly dangerous occupation. She could easily die from the stupidest of mishaps… a papercut in a room full of hungry vampires… an accidental encounter with a strange, invading immortal… or even just a clumsy fall down one of the spiral staircases. Her death then would be tragic, devastating to Felix.

But the blame would be easy to place on the fact that she was mortal, rather than directly on Aro. And that realization made me suddenly wonder if Aro _hoped_ that some accident would befall her. Gianna might give the other secretaries bad ideas if she lived, but if she died accidentally... then Felix wouldn't be able to hold it against Aro forever, and the status quo of how he treated his workers would remain intact.

Gianna's death by such an "unfortunate incident" would take out two-birds with one stone.

Of course, Aro had other priorities than pure, cold-blooded practicality—he was a romantic at heart, and he had allowed Eleazar and Carmen to depart from the coven, even when Eleazar's gift was irreplaceably useful to him. So I didn't doubt that if Gianna made it to the end of her last year in her service as a human that Aro would keep his word and allow her to be transformed and allow Felix to run off with her if they so desired.

And Aro's decision to stall could be for other reasons: there was also the fact that handling another crazy newborn right now, in the middle of preparing to confront what Alice predicted to be one of the most daunting forces in all of history, wasn't exactly something the Volturi wanted to take resources away from battle planning to do. Without a supernatural power of her own, and Felix's probable insistence of her not participating in the combat, she would only be a liability. So at least waiting until July, when all of the insanity we were grappling with now had died down was a smart move.

Still, any amount of waiting when Gianna's life was routinely jeopardized was a gamble, and I could tell that that fact made Felix very uncomfortable.

"Gianna is strong and I will fight for her, Isabella," Felix assured me in a serious voice. "She will make it," he promised me as much as he promised her and himself—his firm words illustrating that he would all that he was physically able to ensure that she survived.

I wasn't so sure, but I nodded anyway, as if my head bobbing could compel the greater forces of the universe to bring this dream into reality— _Please let Gianna live_ , I begged. _Please._

* * *

 _ **Italian**_

* _Prego uscire! Correre! –_ Please get out! Run!

** _La nueva vampira vuole mangiare te_! – The new vampire (female) wants to eat you!


	7. Chapter 6: Floss and Strategems

**AN: And now for the action... err... sorta. You'll see what I mean. The plot thickens! :D**

 **Also, sorry for the late update, I'm getting ready to go back to school now, so all this packing for the last week and traveling all day long yesterday has seriously hampered my ability to write and post. But I'm hoping to be better.**

* * *

 **Chapter Six: Floss and Stratagems**

While the maids went into the dining hall and mutedly mopped up the disturbing mess we'd left for them, I decided to take Felix's advice and retire to my quarters until I was instructed otherwise. When I first arrived back in the lush, bright, cream and purple room, I wasn't exactly sure what to do next, and opted for plopping down on my fancy, four-poster bed.

I wasn't sure why Aro had provided me with such a furnishing—vampires didn't sleep and the only other thing I knew people to actually use beds for was sex, which, being a virgin without a boyfriend, I wasn't planning on having any time soon. But it didn't really matter.

As I lied back and stared listlessly at the ceiling, though, I struggled to relax—there was so much training I ought to be cramming into every spare moment, and I didn't have the nifty human excuse of physical exhaustion anymore, so I shouldn't be taking a break. In fact, my full-stomach made me feel a little antsy with extra energy. So after a few seconds of trying to calm down and enjoy this small reprieve (probably the only one I would get) from my hectic day, I leapt off the bed, darted around the untouched boxes of my human possessions spread out on the floor, and was about to exit the room when something made me stop.

It was a flicker of red in the corner of my vision, where the reflective surfaces inside my small private bathroom were to be found. And as I rapidly turned to face it, I realized that it wasn't just the glint of my crimson eyes I had caught staring back at me in the silver-polished glass. The startling suffuse of red in my cheeks was there too, as were a few droplets of scarlet littering my jacket here and there.

But these weren't primarily what caught my attention. No it was the messy goatee of dried blood clinging to my chin and trailing down my neck as well as the sticky patch in my hair from my recent meal, that turned my gaze into one of horror.

Feeding on human beings and liking it was one thing, but seeing the evidence of the fact that I was a savage murderer now made it all too real, and made me feel rotten and alien in my own skin. And knowing that _Gianna_ had seen me looking like this... made my stomach churn with an unparalleled viciousness.

Sure the corners of Felix's mouth had been a little red when they'd kissed. And I had thought it quite disturbing that she didn't seem to mind when his tongue, which probably still tasted of human blood, entwined with hers. But his appearance had been much more composed than mine.

Right now I looked every bit like the ferocious, merciless beast that Edward had insisted all vampires were down at their core. My hair was matted and askew, my eyes were wide and wild, and my teeth were crusted apathetically with the residue of my last kill.

And the notion than any human being had seen me this way left a cold, throbbing pain in my heart.

 _Perhaps Gianna really was so totally inundated in the world of vampires that noticing things like the face of a newborn after her sloppy second feed didn't upset her anymore,_ I tried to justify to myself. But it seemed much more likely she had simply developed an insanely strong stomach and impeccable acting skills after years of witnessing truly horrific things day after day.

Regardless, Felix wasn't kidding—she was strong.

And as I struggled to keep my unabsorbed stomach contents housed safely within my body, rather than spilling wastefully out of my mouth onto the floor, I felt a surge of envy for her fortitude. She wasn't even a vampire and she was more comfortable around human death than I was.

Deciding that I didn't want to feel like a disgusting monster for another second longer, I eagerly ransacked the gleaming white cupboards, tossing countless bottles of toiletry products and big fluffy towels left and right until I found a toothbrush that looked strong enough to stand up to vampirically strong movements and a unopened tube of my favorite brand of toothpaste. I squirted too much out when I went to spread some over the steel bristles, forgetting how strong my hands were. I covered the porcelain sink beneath my suspended toothbrush in a small puddle of gooey green. But I honestly didn't care. Wasted toothpaste was the least of my worries right now.

Delicately I turned the sink knobs to give me a small trickle of cool water, moving gently, methodically so that I didn't crush the shiny metal beneath my powerful fingers. After running the paste-coated brush under the water for a few seconds I began scrubbing away the flakes of red that had stuck to my perfectly straight, razor-sharp teeth. The steel bristles easily scraped all of the evidence away, which was extremely relieving. But the once pleasant minty taste of the toothpaste was sour and rancid to my tastebuds now, so I quickly spit it out and rinsed out my mouth.

Wanting to be thorough in cleaning out the inside of my mouth before I moved to fixing the grime outside it, I opted to floss next. I found a few small metal wires in a plastic bag beside the toothbrush that were thin enough to slide between my teeth, which Alice must have produced for precisely this purpose.

But when I inserted the first one between my furthest molar and the next one in on my right side, I hadn't really given what I might find there much thought. Flossing was such a routine habit that although my tools were slightly different now to accommodate my increased strength, I hadn't even bothered to stop an consider that anything would be off. Of course when the little wire came back up with a small, remarkably mushy, tannish chunk sticking to it, I immediately recognized what I was seeing and nearly lost my dinner over it.

 _Human skin._

In my teeth.

Oh good God that was nasty.

The little wire I had been holding immediately fell into the sink and my hands had to reach out and clutch onto the edges of the slightly pinkish porcelain basin to prevent me from falling backwards—this was just too much. Bile pooled in my throat instinctively in response to the horrible vision. And though I tried to reign in the impulse, I reflexively choked, spitting a sizeable glob of half-digested blood starkly into the sink, before I forcibly tilted my head backwards and made myself swallow the rest.

When I finally managed to get my esophagus to stop spamsming, I decided to forgo the rest of my flossing for now and instead proceed with the other portions of my post-feeding cleanup until my stomach had been given more time to digest. I was eager to get out of my besmirched combat clothes and remove the crusty dried blood from my face and hair. So after slipping out of my garments as carefully as I could manage, I ran a warm bath.

This time when I scrubbed away at my faintly glimmering skin with another bar of diamond-embedded soap I did so delicately rather than hatefully, and refrained from scratching up my flesh in the process. The vivid flashbacks of my actions in the throne room still deeply traumatized me as I shampooed my mahogany locks and watched the bathwater turn faintly pink. But because Chelsea's influence had helped me trust that everything Aro required of me would be worth it in the end, I managed to escape the tub physically unscathed.

After toweling off and giving my wet, inhuman complexion one critical overview in the mirror to make sure I hadn't missed any spots on my alabaster exterior, I discovered the presence of an electrical outlet near the blood-vomit-spattered sink, and an accompanying hair-blow dryer in the cabinet directly beneath it. I used it quickly—vampire hair, thankfully, didn't retain water for very long—and after returning it to its original location I was surprised to notice that my hair lied completely untangled in soft waves all on its own, without requiring the taming of a hairbrush. I briefly appraised my flawless, effortless beauty from head to toe before I shook myself out of my pointless vanity and refocused on the task at hand: cleaning myself up.

 _Right… I still have to floss,_ I remembered.

I held my hand over my mouth as I accidentally looked down and saw the disgusting, clumpy mess I'd left in the sink from my earlier attempt. Automatically I swiveled my head away from the nauseating sight, and without looking back, I fumblingly turned the sink valves to wash away the splatter of regurgitated blood I'd left behind. After a few seconds of listening to the rush of the faucet, I took a few deep breaths as the coppery scent was flushed away, replaced with the sterile, faintly floral air and placed my hands on my bare hips in determination before I reached for another little wire.

 _I can do this,_ I affirmed to myself. I was trembling as I hefted the small metal object and bent it effortlessly around my fingers in preparation to slide it between my next set of teeth. _It's just a little skin… that's all. Besides, you don't really want that to stay in your mouth forever right?_

I coughed as my extremely unhelpful imagination conjured up an image of decaying, moldy bits lingering in my mouth after thousands of years and nearly dropped the wire again. _Ewwww… ick, bleh! Oh gross!_

Definitely didn't want that.

So with that horrifying consequence of not flossing fresh in mind, I courageously returned to the activity, wincing a bit whenever I came across something gooey, shrieking even when the yield was particularly large, and furiously rinsing out my mouth about a hundred times afterwards to make sure that I had absolutely nothing human left in there. My yelps of fright alerted Alice, who asked several times outside of my door in a painfully cheery voice whether there was anything she could do to help. But I was very adamant that I could handle this on my own—it would be far too embarrassing and Alice would be too insensitive for her involvement to be a good idea.

When the appalling chore was finally finished, I dressed in comfy long-sleeve black t-shirt and dark-grey skinny jeans. I was about to shred my bloodstained leather clothes into ribbons and throw them away, seeing no reason to keep them after I'd worn them to kill, when Alice saw my decision and darted into the room to stop me. She was through the door in seconds and deftly snatched the expensive battle garments out of my furious hands just before I could tear open the first seam. She folded them neatly in her little arms in a flash before she floated back from me.

Instinctively, I initially tried to swipe the fabric back from her— _mine,_ the beast inside me snarled—until I noticed that she was protectively cradling the attire in her grasp with a slightly chiding expression.

Alice gracefully stepped backwards a few more steps to put ample distance between us. "You're going to need these later," she revealed simply, tucking the grimy clothes behind her back.

I relaxed slightly as the incriminating garments were removed from my vision—they were the only remaining evidence that I had slaughtered yet another human being today. And if I could no longer see them, then maybe I could feel marginally better about myself.

But my expression quickly turned puzzled. My entire closet was chock-full of similar combat gear, so I didn't understand what was so pivotal about these particular articles of clothing that Alice was protecting. Especially when I had stained them with selfishly-shed human blood and I doubted that removing such marks from that material would be easy.

"I figured with the stains… around the neck… and on the pants…" I refused to say the word "blood" aloud—I had dealt with way too much of the horrifying substance earlier in the bathroom—and gestured weakly in the general direction of the clothes Alice was hiding, suggesting that I had believed them to be unsalvageable in that condition.

"Oh you hardly got them dirty at all," Alice said brightly, flashing a huge smile at the end of her statement that was meant to be a comfort.

Instead it made me stiffen with disgust— _well 'hardly' compared to the enormous mess I made last time_ , I thought unhappily.

"Just a few spots," Alice remarked offhandedly with a little toss of her glitzy ring-bearing hand, like the smattering of dark red around the collar of my jacket and the few errant beads that had dropped onto the legs were easily remedied. "Nothing the maids can't handle. They really are experts on getting bloodstains out of everything."

Oh. _Well I guess since that was practically their entire job (the Volturi didn't leave many other kinds of messes, though the castle did accumulate a fair amount of dust and cobwebs that needed to be swept up on a regular basis) they had better be good at it,_ I pondered grimly.

"Leather, velvet, wool, silk, taffeta…" Alice went on, listing all the fabrics she'd presumably seen the maids perfectly remove stains from. "I mean… I thought your dress was a lost cause…"

Her words made me freeze. "My dress?" I asked uneasily.

I thought I knew what she was referring to, because I had only worn one dress since my transformation into a vampire, but there was no way…

"The red one you wore when you woke up from your transformation," Alice explained happily, confirming my suspicions and bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. "They fixed it."

"They… what? How? I tore that thing apart!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing—I mean, repairing that _thing_ , restoring it from the ghastly state I'd left it in beside the tub to its original form ought to have been impossible.

"And it was… _soaked_ …" I added uncomfortably, twisting my arms awkwardly around my body. I was horrified by the idea of Aro's human employees happening upon such a disgusting thing, let alone giving a copious amount of time and care to reconstruct it.

"I know," Alice exhaled in a tone that matched my disbelief, as if she hadn't expected it to be possible either until she'd witnessed their work with her own two eyes. "There wasn't a lot left to salvage, so they had to replace a few parts with fresh fabric, and it's got a lot more seams in it now than it did before, to fix the places you ripped.." she stipulated with a shrug.

I winced as I imagined the poor women working very hard to puzzle my dress back together from the pile of rose-red, blood-drenched strips I had left them.

"But they did a spectacular job, I must say," Alice marveled sunnily, her little nod demonstrating that their work had her fastidious approval. "It's sitting in my closet if you want me to go get it."

Alice was about to disappear down the hall to do just that when I panicked and held up a single, forbidding hand.

"No," I firmly commanded.

The last thing I wanted was to further traumatize myself today by being forced to look at yet another reminder of the sacrifices I was struggling to feel comfortable with.

"I don't care how much work they put into it… I don't want it!" I growled out in vicious disgust—more with myself than with her. But she cautiously backed away from me as I gnashed my hazardous teeth anyway.

"Ugh! How small do I have to rip it so that they won't pick up the pieces?!" I shouted my irate thoughts aloud, fiercely determined to utterly destroy the convicting gown at all costs. "Or should I just burn it?" I mused aloud, tensing my hands into cruel fists as my lips cracked wide in a dark, sadistic smile as I imagined the luxurious fabric going up in flames.

Alice might want me to wear it again, as some kind of token of remembrance of my joining the Volturi, but I wanted nothing to do with the damned thing. That dress was practically my funerary gown—to me it represented the death of my humanity, more than it represented my "ascension" into immortality.

The light fell from Alice's eyes as she registered my words and she dropped the leather clothes behind her and started waving her hands in front of her petite body back and forth frantically. "No, Bella! It's…"

"I never want to wear it again!" I snapped, my earlier bargains, disgust and denial all giving way to anger now. "If you want to keep it, go ahead. But if I ever see it again, I will make sure there's nothing of it left for the maids fix," I threatened darkly, baring my teeth and miming a brutal ripping motion with my hands.

"Okay… so I won't give you the dress…" Alice hesitantly acquiesced, gently bending to scoop up the dirty clothes she'd dropped earlier, and warily sliding backwards a little. "But I'll hold onto it just in case…" she said with that vexing, knowing smile, as if she saw sometime in my future when I would desire it again.

I scoffed at the idea. "Whatever. Just… get those out of my sight," I sighed, flicking my wrist irritably in the direction of the battle clothes Alice had entered the room to retrieve. I rubbed my forehead as if all this drama was giving me an emotional headache.

I just wanted to be left to my sulking—I was never going to have the opportunity to reason myself into "reconciliation" as Aro called it, if I was never left alone. I was barely transitioning into the bargaining phase of grief back in the throne room earlier, and all of this tension brought by Alice was making me relapse back into anger, which was regression from my goal.

"Bella…" Alice pleaded after a few short, silent moments, her voice suddenly soft and actually sounding legitimately pained for once. "I am _really_ sorry about all of this…" she offered sincerely. "Aro and I have been thinking…"

Her heartfelt apology was really nice and all, and had I been feeling a little more level-headed my untamable curiosity about what the deadly duo of overzealous minds had concocted together would have forced me to hear her out. But I was tired of her grating presence and I wasn't entirely ready to forgive her for her insensitive slights against me today quite yet.

So I interrupted her. "I said _get out_!" I shouted, my teeth frothing with venom and one pale finger jabbing imperiously towards the door.

Alice complied immediately, shutting her fuchsia-painted lips mid-sentence and moving slowly towards the door, though her face fell as if what she was about to tell me might have greatly cheered me up.

"Alright… I'll go…" she said reluctantly as she pirouetted on her designer-shoe-bearing toes to walk away.

I was just about to start feeling grateful for her decision not to pester me anymore and leave me to mope about my monstrous nature alone, when she unexpectedly froze in the doorway. At first I thought that she had reconsidered her decision to not tell me what she and Aro had been concocting, or had forgotten something else unsettling she wanted to share with me. But as she quickly spun back around to face me, the expression on her marble face was not the chipper smile or faux-remorseful frown I had been expecting. Instead, the look I saw in her wide crimson eyes was one of pure horror.

And after a split second—way too quickly for even my vampire reflexes to respond—she suddenly released a raw, bloodcurdling scream.

Instinctively I backed away from the sharp, high noise, and frantically turned my head all about trying to discover the source of Alice's distress, because I figured that whatever was a big enough menace to her to make her shriek like that also posed a threat to me. But as I searched our surroundings, all my eyes fell upon were harmless purple blankets, fluffy cream carpeting and brightly painted stone walls. The only thing other than myself that could be construed as _remotely_ dangerous was a small spider who had built a tiny web in the upper-easternmost corner of my room.

And that was pushing it—I mean it probably wasn't even poisonous and it couldn't bite either of us with our impenetrable skin anyway.

But regardless of our incredible safety, Alice crumpled to her knees over the threshold of my room, dropped the pile of clothes in her hands onto the floor, and raised both hands to clutch the sides of her little head protectively.

And then she screamed again.

And again.

And _again_ , with no sign of stopping. Each scream was louder, higher and more desperate than the last.

Finally, after watching her pitifully clutch her temples and practically shout herself hoarse, I couldn't take it any longer.

"Alice! _Alice_!" I called out, waving a hand in front of her face to get her attention—but she didn't seem to see me. Her eyes weren't looking at anything in this room, I realized then. She was staring off at something else—actually some _when_ else, to be precise. She must having another vision, I mused as I watched her glazed red eyes look through me. And a terrifying one at that, judging by how she couldn't seem to bring herself to stop screaming.

"Alice! What's wrong?!" I begged, dropping to my knees in front of her and holding her head level with mine. I stared deep into her far-away eyes which didn't react to mine, but instead flickered in response to some horrific scene visible only to her.

"Shh, Shh," I urged, smoothing a hand over her short choppy hair and pressing a single finger against her wide, distressed mouth. The sensation seemed to get through to her and caused her to quiet all of a sudden.

As Alice registered my touch I asked calmly: "What do you see?"

At first Alice didn't say anything, but simply trembled, quaking like a rockslide and her eyes swam with thick, white venom, turning them a sickly pink color. Next, she unexpectedly coiled her little hands around my wrists in a crushing grip, clinging to me desperately as her only tether to reality.

And then, after an extremely shaky intake of breath, she cryptically said:

"It's happening again… He's gone. He burns…" in the most lifeless, devastated voice I had ever heard her use. Her pale eyes looked ready to burst open at any moment with how saturated with venom they had become.

"Oh Jasper!" she suddenly cried out, releasing one of my wrists from her stranglehold grip in favor of reaching out towards the visionary figure in her mind. "Jasper no!" she shrieked as if begging him not to do something lethally dangerous. "JASPER!" she shouted as he apparently didn't listen. " _JASPER_!"

"Alice! Tell me! What's wrong?!" I implored passionately now. I was gripping both sides of her face with my hands and accidentally shook it a little harder than I had intended, which sent Alice's eyeballs bobbing back and forth in their sockets for a few seconds.

"Is Jasper hurt? Does he…?"

 _Does he die?_ I had wanted to ask, but ultimately I couldn't bring myself to say the words aloud. Somehow that would make them all too real.

All our emotional bellowing however, had not gone unnoticed throughout the castle, and in a few moments there was another figure in the doorway, a beautiful immortal woman only slightly shorter than myself. She was all soft curves and had dark brown wavy hair that spilled over her shoulders and trailed half-way down her back—Sulpicia.

"What is the matter? I heard…" Sulpicia apprehensively asked as she looked down on the scene of the two of us kneeling facing one another over the threshold of my room. Her eyes especially lingered on my hands which were still ardently gripping Alice's little head as the visionary girl blankly gazed into the future."Did you do this?" she probed hesitantly.

Sulpicia backed away from me slightly as if worried that I might decide to wrestle her to the floor and exert some kind of paralyzing influence on her as well. She probably figured that was what I did to Alice to make her appear so thoroughly lobotomized.

"No she's having a vision," I explained immediately, releasing my hold on the smooth planes of Alice's face. Her eyes had now blurred away with venom into empty white slates and she started to sob again like her soul had been torn in half.

"A bad one," I clarified solemnly, even though that much was definitely obvious.

Sulpicia's eyebrows raised for an infinitesimal moment before she nodded in comprehension. "Ah, I see. The poor girl," she said sympathetically.

She surprised me by picking up her velvety black skirts and kneeling fluidly behind Alice. She took one of the girl's now eerily limp hands in her own and rubbing it in a tender, motherly way.

"What she has seen… this upcoming calamity… it terrifies her much more than she lets on…" she explained to me in a soft, compassionate voice, reaching out to stroke my chin the way Aro sometimes did with her other hand, coaxing both of us with her impeccably gentle touch.

I blinked in confusion as I heard her declaration. "How do you…?"

"Aro, my mate," Sulpicia supplied immediately, as though it ought to be obvious that he was her source of this knowledge.

I fought not to grimace as she said the word _mate_ , her voice brimming with such obvious, pure love for him that it made me feel sick inside for wanting him.

"For privacy's sake he does not share what he sees in the minds of others unless it is pertinent," she went on as her delicate fingers brushed against my alabaster skin, making sure that I knew that it was not in Aro's nature to unveil any secrets he had discovered in a person's thoughts unless it was necessary. "But he chose to reveal to me that poor Alice is living in a constant, almost catatonic state of fear," she told me gravely, dropping her hand from my face and resting it over the other which still held Alice's.

I tried to envision what Sulpicia was describing—that Alice was so totally terrified by what she saw that it was almost totally immobilizing. But although I'd seen a lot of fear in her eyes when she'd explained what humanity would do if they were to learn of our existence, she seemed pretty composed and functional to me most of the time.

"Really?" I asked. I was only unwilling to completely dismiss the idea because Sulpicia claimed Aro as her informant and well… he was the only one besides Alice who really knew how she was feeling for sure.

"The giddy happiness you see in her is a mask," Sulpicia said somberly, dipping her head and shaking it slightly as she unveiled this well-kept secret of Alice's that made me gasp. "A front that she has carefully built up for decades to try and protect herself from going completely mad."

Stifling a gulp, I strained to picture who Alice must be beneath the painfully happy façade she put up—I was fairly assured that her unflappability in regards to killing a few humans to eat was genuine… her sympathy towards my struggles had always felt false. But as I pondered what her powers must show her on a daily basis: terrifying visions of great, gory calamity, and everyone she actually cared about going up in flames, I suddenly understood what Sulpicia had meant when she had said "catatonic". The constant bombardment of dismal visions would wear anyone down, no matter how plucky that person was, and frankly it was miracle that Alice hadn't gone completely insane yet.

But if she really was bottling all of that in, sheltering the rest of us from the true magnitude of her fear… then she was a _much_ stronger woman than I had anticipated. And abruptly I started to feel very guilty for being upset with her.

Yes she often acted inconsiderately, and manipulatively on the vaguest impressions. But she was just desperate to do whatever it took to find the best future, desperate to escape the all-encircling gloom that seemed all-but-destined to close in around us in the next month. Of course if she felt this way she was bound to care little about whose feelings were injured along the way as long as we all _survived_ ; we could forgive her later. But if we died, loving her or not between now and then wouldn't matter.

With this new cognizance of Alice's perspective, I took a moment to really look at her as she knelt, petrified before me, staring with white eyes at nothing, the only indication that she still lived being her little quivers of fear. "Everything she's been doing since the very beginning… it's all been to stop this inevitable war from turning into a disaster…" I acknowledged aloud, earning another somber nod from Sulpicia.

"She tried for many decades to discern who wanted to instigate the conflict and eliminate them preemptively," Sulpicia offered to make sure that I knew that Alice had given her all to try and nip this calamity in the bud before the stone got rolling, her words sounding almost like a direct quote from what Aro must have told her.

"She is still trying that… but it hasn't been very successful…" she trailed off with a deep, heavily concerned frown. "Aro has been working with her tirelessly since your transformation to get to the bottom of this before we fight. To learn as much about the enemy as we can so that we can prevent losses. But we have so little time left now…" Sulpicia announced austerely, stroking Alice's quivering cheek as she spoke in low, dulcet tones. "She is… panicking… acting rashly… hurting those she loves unintentionally…"

I pursed my lips as I remembered her caustic words toward her mate in the throne room earlier today. "I feel bad for Jasper, though…" I said, fairly convinced that Alice couldn't hear us, or if she could, then she wasn't particularly worried about what we were saying. "I get the impression that she's been especially mean to him."

Sulpicia shook her head in melancholy rebuttal, as if I had no clue what was really going on. Her dark chocolate locks brushed ever so slightly against Alice's immobile cheek as they sailed around her.

"She beats herself up more than you know for every slight she has made against her mate, Jasper, and everyone else she has harmed in order to preserve our lives," Sulpicia illuminated. "It grates on her soul constantly," she lamented from the heart, resting an empathetic hand on the Alice's shaking shoulder and whispering something soothing in Italian in her ear.

She turned back to me. "But she feels as though protecting our kind, protecting our world is more important than whether or not we like her."

I had gathered as much… but still… I had to wonder… did Jasper know that? And if he didn't, why wouldn't she tell him? Would his knowing that deep down she actually probably loved him as deeply as she had earlier affirmed really screw up her plans to avoid nuclear holocaust so badly? I couldn't imagine that it would…

But as my eyes roved over the gentle woman that was Sulpicia, the next question that rolled unthinkingly off my tongue wasn't about Jasper or Alice at all—but rather about how Aro's way-too-perfect-wife felt about me, the silly, naïve, newborn, crushing madly on her mate.

At least… that's what I had been intending to ask, but I had only managed to awkwardly stutter out, "Sulpicia, I… Aro…?" before Sulpicia cut me off.

"You desire him," she interjected, stating the words matter-of-factly and utterly without malice—in fact I think I even saw her gentle lips twisting up into a tiny smile as if my ridiculously strong attraction to him, despite all the huge obstacles in my way was kind of cute, but ultimately totally harmless. "I know, my child. But do not fret. You are not the first, nor are you the last woman to be floored by his charms. His presence is… _overwhelming_ …"

 _Thanks to his blasted pheromones…_ I chipped in mentally. _Why does he have to smell so heavenly?_ I wondered. But I didn't dare voice these embarrassing thoughts aloud. I merely opted to awkwardly wring my hands in my lap, humiliated that my lusty fascination with Aro was so excruciatingly obvious that even Sulpicia, whom I'd rarely spent any time with, and only at a distance, had picked up on it. The rest of the guard probably thought I was a lovesick puppy. Or just a pervert. Or both.

"You will move past these feelings, Isabella," Sulpicia promised, giving my knees a matronly pat that only served to increase my mortification tenfold—if Sulpicia was treating me like a kid, then that was probably how Aro saw me too… much too young to ever be a conceivable match with his millennial wisdom and power.

"When you find your mate, everything will fall into place," she assured me before deciding she wanted this conversation to be over. She rose gracefully to her feet, letting her dark velvet skirts swish around her once again.

"My mate?" _There was that word again._ "What does that mea…?"

But I was very inconveniently prevented from asking this pivotal question as Alice suddenly stopped dryly crying and looked up. Her crimson eyes hazed back into focus as the venom drained back into her system and her petite form ceased to shake and rattle like a massage chair, giving way to a placid stillness.

"Alice, are you alright?" I automatically asked.

I leaned forward, ready to catch the girl if she teetered and collapsed under the momentous stress of what she had just seen. And Sulpicia used my distraction with Alice's wellbeing to make her escape, zipping down the hall and down the spiral staircase to who-knows-where in the castle.

"My visions don't hurt…" Alice said blearily after a little while. She looked a little bewildered by my apparent concern for her physical state. I knelt with my arms extended in preparation to care for her and eyes frantically searched for any outward signs of damage.

"That's not what I meant…" I contributed hesitantly, offering Alice my hand, helping the feather-light pixie easily to her feet.

I returned the neglected stack of dirty combat clothes she'd accidentally deposited on the floor earlier into her diminutive arms.

"You heard me screaming, didn't you." She delivered these words as a statement of fact, not a question, but she was right so I glumly nodded.

Alice sighed heavily, despite the fact that she already knew the truth. "Then you know what I saw."

"Jasper… _dies_?" I warily pursued—at least that was what I had gathered from her recent heart-wrenching vocalizations of his name.

"It isn't certain. None of it is," she recited desperately, disavowing her powers not out of humility this time, but out of sheer longing for them to be wrong about this dreadful event.

I felt awful for her as she vehemently shook her head back and forth trying to banish the vestiges of the horrible vision from her mind. She shuddered deeply one last time all the way from the base of her spine to the crown of her head before her mask of perfect calm settled over her again.

"And it's not from his hunting trip with Aro…" she clarified with a dismissive wave of her hand, upon seeing the anxiety in my features, and given the fact that Jasper was currently outside the safety of the Volturi fortress. "Though they've ran into a few complications along the way, both of them are fine," she noted wryly with a small frown that instantly made me very curious about what she was referring to. "It's during the battle…" she declared rather vaguely.

I was simultaneously so relieved that Jasper and Aro would return unscathed from their unspecified hunting location, and anxious about the impending doom that Alice seemed to believe that the emotionally aggrieved Texan vampires would face that I forgot my previous question and suddenly needed to know what lethal danger awaited him in June. "How does he…?"

"He… _dies_ …"Alice choked on the word, "throwing himself in front of me," she illustrated with a limp tossing motion of her wrist before she buried her face dejectedly in her perfectly manicured hands.

"I've seen it happen a hundred different ways…" she sobbed brokenly into her little fingers. "To save me from an angry newborn. To stop me from getting thrown into a raging fire… To protect me from an incoming missile…." She trailed off with an agonized moan and started shuddering again, this time with a violence that made me worry that she was going to shake herself to pieces.

I gripped her shoulders to still them, and made my best attempt to calm her down "Alice, it hasn't happened yet," I murmured across her cheek as I firmly held her face just inches from mine and looked her directly in the eyes. "It won't," I amended optimistically upon seeing no discernible change in her petrified facial expression.

I was pleased to see her cease trembling once again, swallow her residual pain with a curt, not-entirely-convinced nod and continue with her story.

"He… every time… Jasper… I saw…" her pretty pink lips struggled to wrap themselves around the right words and she balled her little fists in frustration over her uncharacteristic inarticulateness. "I watched him _burn_ …" she finally said. Her beautiful, sparkling soprano voice, broke with emotion like a priceless crystal vase shattering to pieces. "…over and _over_ and over again…"

I winced as I imagined what such a thing must be like to witness. Watching the death of the one you "loved above all else" replay in thousands of equally horrific ways, knowing the entire time that his demise was a noble sacrifice made for you, and yet hating that fact that he was perishing before your very eyes all the same—I couldn't picture anything more traumatizing. I didn't have a mate, so it was impossible for me to truly relate. But based on the way Alice was reacting now and the way Aro had strictly forbidden mates to fight one another in the upstairs combat room, I figured the idea of them coming to harm must be incomparably devastating.

And the fact that it was, in a round-about sort of way, Alice's fault that he didn't make it…

…that just twisted the dagger further.

As I mulled this terrible news over in my mind, envisioning the slender blonde vampire shattered, contorted and ablaze, Alice started to cry—er… well, at least the vocal part of that mournful activity—and I simply let her for a while, holding the smaller woman tightly in my arms as she bawled her heart out into my chest. Although a million questions were burning in my mind right now, begging to be answered with a persistence that was starting to make me feel jittery in my comfy black flats, she clearly needed a moment to simply lament the possible loss. And I knew better than anyone else right now the importance of giving someone space to grieve.

So we stood near the open doorway of my brightly-painted bedroom and clung onto one another for dear life for a very long time, until Alice finally quieted and stepped away from me. She straightened her dark red tunic-dress and briefly checked her opaque black tights for rips around the knees where they had fallen to the ground. Upon determining that her appearance hadn't been marred by her sudden plummeting to the floor, Alice's face twisted into a creepily wide smile, which I now knew was extremely forced, and she nearly skipped out of the room with a quick goodbye, and an empty assurance that she was fine now.

But I caught her by the wrist and dragged her back to me. Her false chipperness wasn't fooling me anymore—underneath her dazzling white-toothed grins, Alice was a train wreck who was in desperate need of some help and support.

"Alice, it's okay to… not be okay," I declared sort of lamely as I held her firmly in place.

I was impressed that managed to succeed in not breaking any of her bones as I kept her here—I was getting better at controlling my strength now. She still yelped in pain though as my fingers contracted around her arm and I apologized profusely for hurting her, even as she shook her head back and forth the entire time vacantly telling me it was fine with that annoyingly happy-sounding voice.

"No, it's not fine," I rebutted, loosening my grip on Alice's person slightly, but not enough for her to wriggle out the door. "I'm sorry for hurting you and you have every right to be broken up about… this vision… But don't pretend to brush it off like it's nothing…" I asked, my tone somewhere between commanding and begging. "He needs to know…"

"Jasper can never know," Alice cut me off with a hearty shake of her spiky-haired head. "This isn't the first time I've seen visions like this, and if I tell him… it will only seal his fate…" she revealed with a grim frown.

I bristled visibly as I realized that she was probably right—telling Jasper that he was going to throw himself in front of Alice would only plant the idea to do so in his mind. It would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if we did that.

"But if he doesn't rescue you… won't you die?" I enquired worriedly. Tentatively, I fully released my hold on Alice, trusting that my grave questions would be enough to confine her to this warmly lit room for now.

"Is there _any_ future you see where you both live somehow?" I asked hopefully.

"Yes. Several," Alice confirmed.

I heaved a sigh of relief, but her voice was strangely cold and unmoved by this fact, like it was little consolation. And I was thoroughly perplexed by her glum attitude until she explained the reason for her discontent with her next words.

"But in order for them to come true… he cannot love me enough to sacrifice himself for me. He has to…" she hesitated for a moment, swallowing thickly and turning her head downwards in a guilty fashion. "… _hate_ me during the battle and forgive me afterwards."

"Oh." Now her recent behavior towards him made a lot of sense—she had only been trying to protect him. "There isn't any other way?"

Alice sadly shook her head. "Not that I see."

Not everything was quite stacking up yet in my mind, though—so I had to ask: "But if he doesn't die because he hates you too much to intervene… then why do you still live? If he just stands back… shouldn't you… you know…" I drew my hand across my neck in a slicing motion to illustrate my point.

If Jasper _didn't_ divert the blast of a nuclear missile or the hands of a furious newborn, or the flames of a raging bonfire, then they would reach their intended mark—Alice—and she would die instead, right? _Is that what she wanted… to perish in his place?_ I wondered, both stunned at the nobleness of such a gesture and aghast at the thought of losing Alice, now that I understood her a little better. _Though she had sounded fairly honest when she said that both of them would survive…_

"No. I'm one of Aro's greatest treasures. He will make sure that I am protected by his guard," Alice matter-of-factly stated.

I cringed a bit as I realized that Alice was so desperate not to lose Jasper that her feelings towards someone else dying in his place were pleased rather than disgusted. Unfortunately, knowing how much Aro valued her predictive gift, I had to concede intellectually that she was right… if forced, he would probably trade half of his current members to protect her… and mostly transitory, strength-type members if he could control it… whose lives Alice apparently regarded as acceptable losses in order for her to keep her mate alive.

"He'd rather lose the twins even, than lose me," Alice added solemnly and I gawked at her words, completely dumbfounded by her lofty assertion of importance.

"His daughters?" I sought to clarify.

I found it impossible to believe that Aro would coldly sacrifice his adorable little girls, whom he appeared to care for more than anything except his mate, even to preserve Alice's incredible power. From what little I'd seen of his interactions with Titania and Lucretia it was absolutely crystal-clear that he would give up anything, do anything; be anything in order to protect them. Alice's abilities might be fascinating and they definitely made her one of the most important chess pieces on his board, but was she really claiming that Aro would heartlessly toss his own children, whom he dearly loved, into the fire to save her?

"God, no. I meant Jane and Alec," Alice said with a horrified shake of her head. Evidently, she was just as disgusted with the idea of Aro prizing his possession of her above his fatherhood as I was. And although I was stunned that she believed herself to be more important than Aro's deadly secret weapons, that claim made much more sense.

"I think I rank after his family…" she acknowledged with the appropriate amount of humility, bowing her head slightly in acquiescence of her lower place in Aro's hierarchy of import. "Besides, they won't be anywhere near the action. He's planning on hiding them away."

 _Of course he was going to do that. There was no way he was letting his family anywhere near the battlefield and it would be ridiculously stupid to just leave them totally unprotected in the castle,_ I reasoned. However, Aro wasn't the only one who had non-combative relations to protect: and I began to wonder if Alice could convince him to let Jasper be on that list of people who sat out of the confrontation, or if the ancient would be adamant on including the former civil war general in the army.

"Tell Aro about Jasper then… make him tell Jasper to sit out or something…" I suggested. I figured that such a course of action was the most logical next move on Alice's part.

But the immediate shake of her head that followed my words and her firm rebuttal implied otherwise. "Believe it or not, Jasper wants to fight," Alice affirmed.

Her words stunned me. I struggled to picture the man who had acted extremely reluctant to harm anyone during our last encounter, enthusiastically reveling in the violence that was to ensue. It didn't fit with what I knew of his character at all.

"Besides, he's very good at it and will be an invaluable contribution." She squinted a bit off into the distance as she spoke as if peering through his possible futures in her mind, and her words were delivered in a way that convinced me that his participation in the battle would greatly increase our chances of survival (though not as much as my participation would.)

"I… I can't… I won't…" she stammered a bit as the alternatives flickered before her eyes, "…take that away from us."

 _Okay, so having Jasper sit out wasn't in the cards._ "So he has to hate you?" I enquired, desperately hoping Alice could think of any other way.

Alice sighed in total resignation. "For now."

I nodded once slowly to convey that I understood and waited a few moments, giving her space to mourn over this impossible conundrum her visions had cornered her into, before I asked the question burning the hottest on my tongue. "Did you see anything else?"

"Yes," Alice answered immediately, looking very relieved to be switching subjects. "The newborns are rapidly increasing in numbers. There are about thirty of them now," she informed me factually.

This made me gasp and throw both hands in shock over my mouth— _that many had been created already? How on earth are they staying inconspicuous?_ I wondered. _There haven't been_ ** _any_** _reports of the usual signs of a vampire population that large… No increase in murders and disappearances… no outbreak of supposed "animal attacks"… nothing at all out of the ordinary except for a few reports of environmentalists freaking out over the shrinking wildlife populations. Vampires had to feed… and yet, there were no signs of anything of the sort having happened._

"But how?" I demanded, bewildered by Alice's predictions when there was absolutely no perceivable evidence to back her claims. "I mean… why haven't any of the secretaries picked up on the signs? The Seattle authorities ought to be freaking out with a crime spike that large…" I asserted rationally, waving my hands about wildly to illustrate just how much the city should be panicking.

Even if all the newborns had only been created yesterday… that would be at least thirty more human deaths than usual… a disturbing statistic which would most certainly make the news. And if they'd been in existence any longer… that would only add to the terrifying toll.

"Ah, I thought that was weird at first too," Alice acknowledged with a small, conspiratal smile that clearly said I-know-more-than-you-do. "But they're not eating humans. They newborns are… ahem… _vegetarians._ "

My crimson eyes nearly fell out of their sockets they grew so wide. " _What_?"

I couldn't believe it. I had thought that Carlisle was the only vampire really crazy enough to voluntarily deprive himself of vital nutrition in that manner, and even he was only really able to do so because of his gift. Everyone else's willpower just wasn't strong enough—they had to rely on Aria's manipulation, or subsist on a mixed diet. That a random conglomeration of newborns whose creator wasn't terribly concerned with causing collateral human death (if the visions of nuclear destruction Alice saw were any indication) would chose such a path was utterly unthinkable. Vegetarianism was an enormous sacrifice, especially of strength—which would be important if they wanted to beat us in a fight. What possible motivation could they have?

"I know, it doesn't make any sense from a tactical standpoint," Alice said with a confused shrug. "You'll be three times stronger than them. But I bet it has something to do with their allies… From this vision I discovered that the newborns' leader is forming an alliance with some other supernatural beings who wouldn't approve of them hunting humans. Witches, certainly and probably some shape-shifters," Alice offered in an uncertain way that confirmed that her perception regarding this matter was once again obscured. "Maybe even the wolf pack."

My eyebrows flew up to my hairline at this unexpected announcement "The wolf pack?" _Surely Alice couldn't mean who I thought—Jacob would never align himself with the enemy… At least I hoped not…_

"Whoever is leading this operation keeps pitching this nonsense about 'protecting humanity' being the objective of this war—that by discreetly confronting and destroying the Volturi and all other human-drinking vampires all humans will be safe," Alice snorted derisively like the idea was completely absurd.

"It's totally not the true goal, though," she clarified explicitly, just in case I hadn't already gathered as much. "I'm starting to think the newborn army was created to fight us ultra-conspicuously in the open and reveal the supernatural to the humans so that we become extinct. Then the witches can practice their magic openly and achieve immortality without our help," she postulated with one raised index finger as if it was just one of many possible motives.

"Most witches _hate_ being involved with vampires," she reminded me and I immediately recalled how deeply Aria had despised even the animal-drinking vampires she was helping to overcome their thirst. "So if they could remove us from the equation… get rid of the 'statute of secrecy' we've imposed on them, they would be a lot happier.

"Oh." _That would make perfect sense,_ I inwardly accepted.

But it was an extremely brutal and very risky plan—I mean, what if humans reacted the same way to witches that they did to vampires? Sure witches didn't make a habit of slaughtering humans for food, and they possessed powers that could potentially benefit humanity, which made them quite a bit more sympathetic, but would mortals really trust them, a whole different species, after learning about us? I really hoped that we wouldn't have to find out—we were going to stop the newborns before that ever happened.

And didn't witches still need us to trigger their powers anyway?

But then I suddenly considered something else. "Wait… you still don't know who is creating all of the newborns?" I asked.

I was baffled that Alice had seen so many visions regarding this momentous event and the identity of our enemy still eluded her. She'd seen Jasper and Aro and I coming _long_ before she had ever met us, so why was this person hidden from her sight? The person making the newborns was necessarily a vampire themselves, and so even if a witch (who could shroud their identity in Alice's visions) was calling all the shots, we ought to know who was building the army by now. Wouldn't Alice see their decision to bite and make another vampire and see their face in that revelation?

"No. Their creator's face has always been shrouded for some reason," Alice said with a sour grimace. "A spell perhaps?" she tossed out putatively before she suddenly switched her tone to one more resolute. "But I did see something new—this time I got an outline of their figure and flash of curly red hair…"

"Victoria?" I probed, only knowing of one hostile vampire roaming in the Washington area who fit that description.

Alice solidly shook her head. "No. She's involved, but she's not their leader," she denied.

Alice paced back over to my bed, tapping her chin in deep thought before seating herself elegantly on the soft purple bedding."The leader is male, I can tell that much from the shape of his body," she explained as I slowly followed her path and settled into the downy bed beside her. "But he must have witches as accomplices and know about my gift. He's very careful not to make any decisions until the very last moment and for some reason I can never discern his identity. It's like he's always wearing a black veil."

My lips twisted into a disappointed frown— _well that was frustrating_ —until I was struck with a sudden epiphany. "Wait, that narrows it down quite a bit, right? How many male, red-haired vampires know about your powers?"

"It's entirely possible that rumors could have spread, Bella… Victoria learned from Laurent about my gifts… she could have easily told this man…" Alice started to counter before I abruptly cut her off.

"Yeah, but hasn't this threat been looming over our heads since the very beginning? Your very first vision was about this, Alice," I reminded her, pointing out that this conflict went all the way back to that fateful day in the 1920s when Alice had finished writhing under the pain of venom.

"In order to remain so anonymous, this person would have to have made preparations to counteract your powers before they were immortalized, right?" I rationalized.

I presumed that without knowledge of Alice's gift, the identity of the instigator of this great conflict would have been immediately revealed to Alice upon her awakening as a vampire. Since his identity remained unknown, he must have taken "precautions" before that first vampiric vision of hers. Which would mean he would have to have at least met Alice when her powers were weaker and probably had to be fairly close in order to understand them so well that she didn't know who he was yet.

"Doesn't that mean that this vampire would need to know you really well when you were human… when your powers were too weak to predict this calamity but still evident. And wouldn't he need to hang around long enough to have an inkling that they might grow?"

"Oh… you're right," Alice breathed in amazement, clearly not having considered this before. "Bella you're a genius!" she exclaimed jubilantly, throwing her arms around me as if I had just given her the best news in the world.

I however, didn't see how my revelation was very helpful. "But you can't remember your human memories…"

"I could… If I chose to," Alice unexpectedly told me, though the cold, empty way she said it made it clear that the prospect was undesirable. "I had simply hoped that I wouldn't need to."

I narrowed my eyes in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

 _Alice could choose to remember her human memories? How? Weren't they always missing since when she woke up as vampire?_ That was what she had told me for the past year, at least.

"I… had Carlisle erase them," she admitted a little guiltily, bowing her head like she was sorry for not telling me sooner.

I gasped aloud again as I registered this information.

"They were… bogging me down," she gave as her weak excuse. "I needed to focus, to put on my best happy face for you, Bella," she added, looking me pointedly in the eye to remind me of my importance in her grand plan and revealing that her unpleasant recollections were an obstacle to that goal. "Those memories were… too much to bear… But I guess now that we have this clue, I'll have to go visit Carlisle to them back, though…" she conceded with a bitter frown.

"Right now?" I prodded, rising eagerly from the bed, my legs tensing in preparation to bolt for the door, feeling extremely enthusiastic to possibly finally get some answers.

"No. We won't be going alone," Alice boldly announced.

She held up a forbidding hand in my direction and stared off into space with that unnerving glazed look in her eyes again as she peeked into the future again. I was about to ask just who Alice saw accompanying us on our journey when she suddenly jumped up from her seat and declared: "And Aro and Jasper are about to return."

"They're finally back?" I asked urgently.

Aro and Jasper had been suspiciously absent from the castle in order to accommodate Jasper's additional thirst for sixteen hours. And although Chelsea's influence was helping to hold us together, the guard was obviously starting to feel rather antsy in the absence of their leader.

"Almost!" Alice chirped happily as she hopped to her feet, before dashing to the door and motioning with an insistent hand out into the ancient hallway. "Let's go!"


	8. Chapter 7: The Children

**AN: Whoa, sorry for the late update! My junior year at college just started and boy is it crazy!**

 **On another note, I just finished revising the entirety of the Luxury of Mercy and The Desolation of Mercy. Not much is different, mostly just adding some periods and clarifying sentences to make them make more sense. Chapter 15 of Lom does have an important extension on Aria's processes and in Chapter 12 I clarified Carlisle's reasons for his diet a little more. But those are the only major changes.**

* * *

 **Chapter Seven: The Children**

After Alice had disappeared down the spiral staircase almost immediately following her announcement that Aro and Jasper were going to return, I stood in the doorway of my quarters for a few moments, too dazed to react at first and wholly absorbed in struggling to understand her words. She had discovered so much today through her talents and I was physically frozen in shock as my supernaturally fast brain whirred to life, wanting to analyze the new onslaught of information from every possible angle. There was a lot to process, so I began with summarizing what I had learned:

First: _Alice had voluntarily gotten her human memories erased by Carlisle because they were too traumatizing to deal with._ That certainly had come as a big surprise, but knowing that she had spent much of that time in an asylum because of her visions and that electro-shock therapy was common practice on the mentally unstable back then I couldn't really blame her—I probably wouldn't want to live with those memories either.

Second: _Jasper would die unless he hated Alice._ This one was much sadder, and I couldn't help but wonder if there was another way, but Alice was much too paranoid to lose him to try it.

Third: _Aro would be willing sacrifice practically any other guard member to save Alice._ Grim, but not really astonishing—her gift _was_ really useful, after all…

Fourth: _The newborn's creator_ _ **wanted**_ _to cause the extinction of the vampire race._ That was disturbing, because it in order to change a human into a vampire, well… one obviously had to _be_ a vampire—which meant that there was a vampire out there who hated his own kind so much that he wanted them all to perish. That was just totally messed up. Whoever this curly red-haired man was, whom Alice had probably known during her human life well enough for him to see that she could predict the future and prepare accordingly, I wasn't eager to meet him. He sounded completely insane.

Fifth: _The newborns weren't the only ones facing us in the upcoming battle. Witches were involved, probably shape-shifters too, and maybe even Jacob…._ I didn't like this idea at all. We were already afraid that our forces wouldn't be enough to face the massive army of newborns that was being raised against us—if they were all as strong as me, if we weren't careful the entire guard could get decimated in seconds—adding more supernatural threats to the equation only worsened our prospects of surviving. And if the wolf pack was joining the fight… I could be forced to contend in a life or death battle with one of my best friends.

 _And sixth: Jasper wanted to fight._

That was almost the most astonishing piece of information—he hadn't sounded very eager to be dragged into this mess when he'd first arrived in the throne room before my second meal as a vampire. No, on the contrary he'd sounded positively pissed that Alice had cajoled him into joining the Volturi and abandoning his deleterious, but worthily humane diet as a part of preparing for the upcoming battle… so I was having a hard time believing this particular assertion of Alice's. Everything else she had revealed made perfect sense—even if the notion that Carlisle had agreed to wipe twenty years of the girl's memory at her behest was a little unnerving.

But as I stood there by the threshold, still as a statue, I began to wonder if Alice had been lying about the sixth thing on my list. There wasn't an immediately obvious reason _why_ she would lie about such a thing— _if Jasper didn't want to fight, wouldn't having him sit out be much more beneficial to everyone than forcing him into an activity he was totally repulsed by?_ I reasoned. I couldn't imagine that any combatant would serve our cause very effectively if they were unwilling contributors, but then again I didn't have Alice's sight to confirm what she claimed to have seen. Perhaps, as unlikely as it felt to me, Jasper really was eager to use his skills. Or maybe the net benefits he would supply to the group by adding his military expertise to the fight really were so grand that his grudging attitude towards the event was ultimately irrelevant.

I balled my fists in frustration as I came to one awful realization—I had no way of knowing for myself.

If Alice was lying, obviously she wouldn't say so. Aro of course, would tactfully remain silent and neutral and wouldn't permit his daughters to share anything with me that might inspire dissention. And since I _did_ believe her grave revelations regarding Jasper's death—how could I not when I'd seen her shriek his name and crumple to the floor mid-visions before my very eyes?—I couldn't exactly ask him how he really felt about engaging the newborns in Seattle, or else I might accidentally get him killed.

Perhaps the Texan's facial expressions and body language when he finally joined the official preparations with the others would tell me what I needed to know, I hoped. But just as I began to mull this notion over in my mind, I finally recognized that Alice had abandoned me to greet the two returning men who were soon to appear in the turret room, if her words were any indication, and decided to chase after her.

I figured that if the resident fortune-teller was making haste to greet them again, perhaps I should follow—betting on Alice _usually_ turned out for the better. Though I was starting to understand that "usually" did not mean _always_ …

…

Having gotten a significant head-start, I wasn't able to catch up to Alice before she reached her intended destination, despite my considerable newborn speed. When I burst dramatically into the hidden, circular area, though, I was relieved to discover that I hadn't missed anything important in my delay. Aro and Jasper weren't anywhere to be found—in fact, Alice and I were the only two persons to be found within that fateful room, which I noted somewhat wryly was now immaculately clean, thanks to the maids.

Alice was still beaming however with that ludicrously bright smile I now could recognize as insincere. Truthfully, she was excited to see her mate again, but her dreadful visions of his death still plagued her under the surface. And as I paced closer to her anxiously frittering form, bouncing animatedly in her designer shoes near the center of the room, I also saw another layer of emotion lurking behind her shining red eyes: a new layer of nervousness, not centered on her fears about the upcoming battle at all, but rather a more urgent worry, presumably about something that had only recently transpired. At least… that's what I thought I was seeing, and given my uncanny tendency to be right with my observations, I trusted this instinct.

"Alice is something wrong?" I uneasily perused as she moved frenetically about. I was unsure if she would answer—the matter might be too delicate to discuss. She wasn't going to say anything if sharing her ominous visions with me would secure their occurrence.

And to my mortification Alice _did_ remain silent, pursing her lips together and letting her happy mask slip for a moment to look sorrowfully into my eyes with a single finger pressed over her fuchsia lips to let me know that she couldn't say anything—that whatever she saw was too sensitive to speak about. That if she talked, our happy endings could be seriously jeopardized.

I nodded gloomily to convey my understanding, and was about to ask another question, hoping this one was permissible to answer, when suddenly I heard a clamor of booted footsteps heading our direction. Alice and I both automatically swiveled to face the concealed wooden door as they approached us.

Two telltale, sugary smells (all vampires smelled extremely sweet) permeated the air. One was spicier like cinnamon and the other was a bit tart like strawberry. Because of prior experience, I immediately recognized them as belonging to Aro and Jasper respectively. The fruitier aroma was also interlaced with a fairly strong scent of human blood, telling me that Jasper had recently fed himself.

I stiffened considerably where I stood as I imagined how many people the poor empath must have consumed to completely alleviate his starvation. With his powers, I couldn't imagine that sating his thirst had been a comfortable experience.

But I wasn't allowed any more time to cringe at Jasper's pain, because in the next moment, Aro's dexterous hand had hastily slid aside the secret panel and held open the plain wooden door resting behind it. He allowed Jasper to wander into the room ahead of him, his dark snakeskin cowboy boots clacking despondently against the warm stone floor.

I stifled a gasp as I watched him enter; Jasper was a total mess. The black turtleneck he had ripped at a little earlier around the neck when I'd seen him yesterday was in ribbons now, a few grimy strips barely clinging to his toned torso. His boots seemed in remarkably good shape, only a little muddy. But his face was surprisingly covered in grime too—like he had fallen headfirst into the dirt—and his wavy golden hair was matted and stuck together in icky clumps of desert clay and halfway-dried human blood. Additionally his pants were ripped and spotted with brownish-red stains everywhere that looked suspiciously violent.

Automatically, I tried to conjure up the scenario that must have caused him to look like this in my mind. _Had Jasper gotten into a fight with other vampires over his prey in whatever city Aro had taken him to hunt in?_ I wondered as I examined the eerily tooth-like pattern of tears in his clothing and the spattering of hair-thin, crescent-shaped, white scars covering Jasper's exposed skin. _Or had he somehow done this to himself… bit at his skin in self-loathing?_ I considered, totally devastated by the idea that Jasper's depression might take him so low, despite the fact that I had nearly done the same thing after my first kill. _That would be awful…_

Jasper's sudden entrance into the room, and his heavily torn and disarrayed clothing had caused both Alice and I to freeze were we stood, every marblesque muscle and tendon petrifying like statuary on the spot. We held our breath and our eyes flickered toward one another in worry as we wondered what the older vampire before us had suffered during his trip and might decide to do in response to our unexpected presence now, but otherwise we made absolutely no movements.

For a moment as Alice and I stood utterly immobile atop the recently polished stones, Jasper didn't seem to realize that we were in the room. And neither did Aro, who fluidly floated in after Jasper, his once only minorly scathed leather battle clothes also shredded on every edge and spattered in dark, reddish splotches that made my hair stand on end in alarm.

But this moment was extremely fleeting. And very soon, thanks to their sensitive noses, the pair realized they were not alone.

Their anxious crimson eyes immediately bored into us with looks of curiosity, bewilderment and… _scorn_ … at least on Jasper's part.

I tried not to shudder as I saw the intensity of mal-intent in Jasper's fuming ruby irises, and was astonished that Alice was able to give her tiny hand a little happy wave in his direction, not betraying even a sliver of her true anxiety for his wellbeing.

"You look healthier," she remarked, drawing a circle in the air around his face as she spoke insensitively. She was probably barbing him on purpose with her words as part of her scheme to get him to hate her so that he wouldn't sacrifice himself to save her in June.

"Glad to see you've finally done the smart thing and fed yourself properly!" she exclaimed with that grating, high voice and clapping her hands together in excitement like she was a five-year old who just got a new doll for her birthday.

Apparently her manipulation was extremely effective, maybe even a little too much. Jasper gritted his teeth, snarled hatefully in her direction and crouched as if ready to pounce on the shorter woman beside me. Clearly her words had struck a nerve, and Jasper wasn't about to let her callous remarks go unpunished.

Eager to avoid a dispute between two of his powerful members Aro quickly raised both of his hands in a halting gesture and calmly chided, "Dearest Alice… that was uncharacteristically impolite. Your _mate_ has just been through a harrowing trial," he revealed softly. He placed a peculiar emphasis on the word "mate" as if the appellation was rather ironic for some reason.

"Now is not the time to lecture him. Surely you ought to know what awful thing has happened…" he asserted. He directed a pale hand towards her as he referenced her predictive abilities and what they must have shown her about the events that happened during Aro's hunting trip.

"We must call in the others to discuss what needs to be done about this abominable crime at once!" he announced to both of us. After a flicker towards Alice his eyes settled specifically on me for the first time since his departure, making my cold, undead flesh tingle with electricity as his sultry gaze penetrated my soul.

I was definitely not expecting Aro to reveal that there had been a breech of vampire law. But I realized immediately that whatever it had been took precedence and nodded to convey my compliance. Alice, however, protested his decision to convene the guard immediately, explaining that she'd seen a vision about the battle. She pushed her hand forward in offering, clearly trying to share with him her most recent visions.

Most upsettingly, however, Aro declined to accept her offer. Instead he sidestepped the appendage she was presenting and gave a slow shake of his head. "Not yet, my dear. As fascinating as your powers are, this is a matter that needs to be addressed first," he explained seriously as he drifted beautifully away from her short form. "Preferably, whilst I am undistracted," he added to silence her again as she tried to articulate just how important what she had seen truly was.

"What happened?" I immediately asked in panic, my eyes flickering between Jasper, Alice and Aro after my inquiry.

I felt terrified of what terrible tale they might share— _Alice had mentioned there were some complications on their trip,_ I recalled. _But what sort of complications?_ I worried as I glanced over at their destroyed garments and overall mussed appearances again. _Had Jasper been the one to commit the crime?_ I found myself fearing. _Or was it someone else?_

Jasper trembled a bit where he stood as I asked this question, though not in rage, I noted, nor in fear, but rather in what looked like horror and disgust. Aro too looked thoroughly traumatized by what he had seen, shivering as he replayed the events over in his mind.

After a moment's hesitation, Aro offered with a sorrowful hake of his head: "It is best if I explain this matter before the entire guard. What happened was so ghastly, I have no desire to speak of it any more than necessary," he practically whispered in my direction. His furtive gaze in Jasper's direction told me that he was worried that the blonde couldn't take any more than that without suffering a massive emotional breakdown.

I swallowed thickly and nodded. But inwardly the highly efficient cogs in my brain were whirling out of control— _what on earth could possibly have happened that was so disturbing that even Aro seemed upset by it? He hadn't even flinched at the nightmarish mess I'd caused on my first day as a vampire, and wasn't fazed in the slightest by the regular gore he encountered in this very room… so how truly horrific of a scene must he have witnessed to elicit_ _ **this**_ _reaction?_

I could only imagine that whatever had occurred was inconceivably awful and my stomach churned just trying to fathom it.

…

 _May 14_ _th_

When the grandfather clock in the library tolled midnight, the entire guard convened in the throne room at Aro's request. Some of them were still wearing their combat gear, and others changed into more restful attire. Some mouths were still reddish in the corners and others were immaculately clean. But none of those pithy details really interested me anymore—what did it matter if the signs of death still lingered on their lips? All of us had murdered someone today whether we chose to try and disguise that fact or not, I grimly surmised.

But regardless of their state of cleanliness, all of the immortals congregated in this secretive location appeared to be rather on edge, sensing that they had been gathered here to discuss something of monumental importance. Red eyes danced around the room worriedly, and a low murmur of fearful conversation filled the room as clusters of darkly-clad vampires whispered to one another, wondering what could have possibly inspired this sudden assembly and fearing the worst. Others remained dutifully silent, but Alice's was the only face that superficially appeared totally unaffected—everyone else, even the traditionally most unmoved members, looked apprehensive, to some degree or another.

As the guard murmured amongst themselves, Jasper stood poker-faced and rockily-still in front of the chalky dais steps next to Aro, (who had changed into a finely tailored robe), and stared straight ahead with bright, crimson eyes. Though he strained to not let it show in his features, I could tell from the unnaturally rigid way he was standing that he was vastly uncomfortable with his central position. Particularly the way it made everyone's eyes rove critically over him, lingering especially on the outward signals of his outside hunting activities.

He fought not to bristle as the guard gazed with disbelieving terror into the irises that showed his thirst was now satisfied and looked at the disastrously torn clothes he hadn't bothered to change out of. But I could tell that it was proving extremely difficult for him. I couldn't imagine that the idea of even the cruelest of guard members balking at his killings today was very pleasant for anyone to endure, let along someone as ultimately good-hearted as Jasper. There was also the fact that with his powers, Jasper could not only feel the intensity of their stares, but the full weight of their skepticism and horror himself.

He curled his hands into tight, white-knuckled fists at the effort it took not to shudder under the guard's scrutiny. In spite of all his efforts, venom started to shine glossily in his eyes after a few minutes and his lower lip began to quiver like he was ready to break into sobs. Once again I was dying to know what had happened to make him feel this way. And the inaudible whispers of comfort Aro gave to Jasper as he surreptitiously brushed a tender, reassuring palm over the back of the man's hand, only fueled my curiosity.

Aro's quest to give the younger vampire solace seemed genuine, but it appeared that Jasper wasn't taking to the ancient's soothing words very well. Very suddenly, he tried to extricate his hands from Aro's as if the vampire's touch was now greatly perturbing him when it hadn't been before. And when Aro tenderly reached for him again, Jasper raised his voice in distress, just barely loud enough for everyone's supernaturally attuned ears to hear:

"There was nothing you could have done, Aro," Jasper hissed under his breath in protest.

"But dearest Jasper, I have made a terrible thing happen…" Aro despaired, clutching the stretchy black fabric of Jasper's turtleneck with an intensity that shocked me, and everyone else. The crowd began exchanging bewildered glances around the room.

"What a wretched monster I am!" Aro exclaimed, suddenly letting go of Jasper and splaying a hand woundedly across his chest.

Jasper looked totally mortified by Aro's sudden dramatic outburst, since it had garnered the full attention of everyone in the room. But I had an inkling Aro was putting on a show on purpose, to introduce the idea that all had not gone as intended during their little outing a little more subtly than just an open announcement.

"It was an accident. Unpreventable," Jasper said coldly, though I could tell that behind his impassive façade he desperately wanted to mirror Aro's theatric display of sorrow and pain. "You said so yourself…"

"Ah, but how will you ever forgive me…" Aro lamented, his eyes starting to turn cloudy with venom as he remembered whatever traumatic incident the two of them had experienced… or possibly instigated…

"The children…" he broke off, his normally impeccably smooth voice cracking with emotion. His aggrieved head whipped back and forth frantically as if trying to banish a particularly gruesome memory from his mind.

As his luscious black hair flew in a dark halo around him, I released a horrified gasp of my own and both of my trembling hands flew to my mouth in fearful disbelief—surely Aro couldn't mean what I thought…. Surely he couldn't mean that Jasper had thirstily devoured a bunch of _little kids_.

A sea of adorable, chubby little figures, delightfully and darling like Aro's daughters, albeit mortal, danced happily before my eyes before they suddenly began to scream as a pair of cruel, male hands seized them and the vision abruptly became drenched in red.

 _No…_ I denied the sickening scenario. _No that couldn't happen… Jasper would never…_ Not innocent children… Especially not if Aro, of all people, regarded the idea as particularly appalling—I had noticed that he never allowed any pregnant women or children under the age of fifteen to be included in Heidi's batches, despite the fact that kids were probably one of the easiest kinds of humans to make disappear without a trace. He had _some_ moral reservations when it came to what he killed to eat…

"I remember well enough on my own, Aro," Jasper curtly replied, obviously not thrilled by the prospect of reliving the apparently traumatic experience over again in his mind. And I didn't blame him… if he really had done what I assumed in a fit of ravenous rage, rehashing that awful situation would only crush his already fragile heart with inescapable despair.

"Would you mind enlightening us, brother, on what has you so upset? Why you've… convened us here?" Caius interrupted the pair frostily. His arms were forbiddingly crossed and his leather-booted foot tapped impatiently against the sienna stones beneath his imperious feet. Clearly the ancient white-haired vampire did not appreciate being left in the dark as to what exactly had occurred, with only a few grim hints getting incidentally tossed his way—he wanted the whole story so he could decide whether or not his brother's trapped tears were reasonable or not.

Aro took a shuddery deep breath to calm himself before he began to explain. "I intended to take Jasper to our friends in India," he started. He surprised me, and several others with how even and buttery his voice sounded all of sudden, as well as how quickly the venom drained from his eyes, restoring them to their former unfazed crimson.

"They always have extra humans on hand that they do not mind to give away on occasion," he offered as the logical argument for his choice, his manner suddenly aloof towards the idea of people dying, like these friends of his were gifting fruit bowls instead of human beings.

My curious brain surged with a thousand questions about these new vampires, Aro was referencing. _Who just had "extra humans" lying around that they could offer as food to their starving friends?_ I wondered, seriously repulsed with Aro's wording. _What did that even mean? People didn't grow on trees… they came from communities…_

 _Did these friends of his perhaps run the gross kind of human farm that my first victim had been suggesting?_ I considered, nauseated by the idea.

"But I was careless in choosing our route," Aro continued, oblivious to my inner monologue, his voice dipping back into a measure of its previous grief as he mentioned his crucial mistake. "And we ran across a remote village, probably consisting of some three hundred people—too small to be on the map, you see—on accident…

I cringed as I imagined what must have happened as a result—Jasper may have been able to avoid killing Gianna earlier today because his conscience made him hesitate. But after the feeding frenzy had begun… Edward said it was nearly impossible to stop. Jasper would be irritable enough from abstaining during the long plane ride over there, which the pair had probably done with Heidi's private jet. Once he touched down and caught a whiff of human blood again… his hunting instinct would have automatically kicked in and there would have been no stopping him.

Caius seemed to understand this fact as well as I did, but his demeanor was completely callous towards those who had unwittingly ended up on the menu by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn't even blink. "Hmmm," was all he said, ponderously, as though Aro's revelation was only an interesting bit of trivia. "And the witnesses?"

Aro morosely shook his head again. "There were no survivors."

Now Caius blinked and nervously stepped backwards, his face very rigid and a bit scared now. "This… Jasper consumed them all?" He breathed incredulously, making a valiant effort to constrain his shock in his tone. His cruel eyes widened and flickered towards the exit, as if highly considering the idea of dashing away from the thoroughly frightening creature before him if Aro answered in the affirmative. The unusual hesitancy in his feet as they floated unsteadily away from Jasper disturbed me the most though—if Caius thought that such a thing was unthinkable and was acting _afraid_ , then perhaps the rest of us ought to run for the hills. I really disliked the idea of seeing Jasper as a threat, because he had a good soul, but anything _Caius_ was afraid of ought to spell nothing but doom.

"Oh good heavens no," Aro exclaimed passionately, and Caius actually heaved a barely audible sigh of relief. "He consumed another fifteen or so, and then he was filled. His deep tissues were very dry from such prolonged starvation, almost powdery, so he did absorb quite a fair amount to restore them. But there _are_ absolute limits to what one of our kind can drink in one sitting," Aro clarified academically, assuring everyone in the room that it was completely impossible for one vampire to exceed imbibing a certain amount of blood, even if they had taxing physical powers and had spent half a century on the brink of death.

"Then you took care of the rest. Slaughtered them? Or perhaps… fed them to your hungry friends?" Caius demanded, eager to gather the rest of the tale so that he could comprehend the slightly manic Volturi leader's confusing emotional response.

"No."

Aro denied all of Caius' theories with this simple word before he drifted gracefully a few feet away from Jasper and lowered his voice to a honey whisper as if that somehow would make his retelling of the story easier for the young Texan vampire to bear. "Some of our friends' adult children were attracted to the bloodbath and they decided to… assist in eliminating the witnesses," he quickly clarified.

At first, Aro's remarks confused me because I thought the children he referred to were mortal, until after a second I realized that Aro was still referring to vampires. Based on his comments I had gleaned that his friends in India were obviously vampires based on their offers of human blood, and that they had sired children, who must have inherited vampirism in the same manner as Titania and Lucretia. I also gathered that those children were now fully mature, and that they decided to "chip in" when they noticed that a foreign vampire was going on a crazy hunting spree in a neighboring village. And as I mulled these things over I really hoped that these born-vampires were who Aro had meant when he had said… "the children"—that they had been the ones to do something criminal, rather than that Jasper had eaten some innocent human toddlers.

"I see," Caius acknowledged flatly after processing this information, his lips hard and his arctic eyebrows still quirked in confusion. "That does not seem to be a reason for sorrow, however… Is it not a boon that such good sustenance did not go to waste?"

Again Aro grievously shook his head—whatever was disturbing him, Caius just wasn't getting.

And frankly I wasn't getting it either. Certainly the idea of so many people dying made me seriously consider revisiting my bathroom sink and coughing up everything my stomach had not yet fully absorbed over the night (which wasn't much, actually, immortal digestion was basically finished in a matter of four hours). But I knew that making sure that unfortunate witnesses didn't live to tell the tale was only another of the many grisly parts of the program. It was regrettable, sure—particularly since Aro despised waste—but it wasn't anything unusually bad according to most vampire ethics. And Caius was right, in his own cold-bloodedly analytical way: _Wasn't the fact that the blood of all those people didn't go to waste a good thing… the best thing that could have happened given such terrible circumstances?_

"The children were already sated before they arrived," Aro divulged as though this fact should be momentously devastating.

Many of the guard gasped in shock as they heard it. Though I wasn't quite used to vampire-lingo enough to catch on as quickly as everyone else.

"I do not understand…" Caius began dubiously, like what Aro was claiming was just as unbelievable as if the raven-haired vampire had announced something as nonsensical as that the moon had turned purple.

"If they did not thirst, why did they come?" he inquired with a slightly irate lilt to his voice as he inclined his head to the side in confusion. "If forced, perhaps I could consume the blood of another today… but sated vampires can only gorge themselves so much…" he explicated.

Suddenly everyone's reactions made sense—if the children were already full of blood, their "assistance" must not have been in the feeding department.

"They must not have been much help, then," Caius concluded unemotionally, voicing my realizations exactly.

"No, you do not know these children, Caius," Aro rebutted, his bright red eyes glittering with sadness again. "They came because, the pleasure of feeding is alluring, regardless," he revealed, softly purring out the syllables of the last few words to accentuate his point.

Instinctually, I emitted a low rumbling growl of agreement—yes the sensation afterwards certainly was heavenly.

Aro cleared his throat gravely before he continued: "They… _emptied_ their stomachs… wastefully… over and over again…" he said, his feathery voice mounting in terror and his eyes widening further with each phrase. "Just to feel the ecstasy of drinking human blood as many times as possible."

My whole frame suddenly became petrified as I pictured the ghastly behavior Aro was describing—these born-vampires did _what?_

" _Emptied their stomachs_?" Caius repeated, aghast at what he was hearing, and evidently eager for Aro to correct him and state that something else had actually happened.

But when Aro remained tellingly silent, Caius's incredulous gaze turned fiery, ablaze with rage at what had been done. "These children of your friends… _purposefully_ wasted their previous kills?" he spat acridly like the idea was an abomination to him.

And to my utter dismay, Aro sadly nodded. "As soon as they were filled, they vomited all the blood they had drank into the dirt and began again, to stimulate that pleasure response as many times as possible." he vividly described. He sounded thoroughly repulsed, shivering slightly even as the words rolled fluidly off his tongue.

"They only stopped after devouring one village in this manner because I threatened to destroy them if they did not," he further disclosed, making it very obvious that had he not issued such an extreme warning, his friend's offspring would have continued in this horrible practice of guzzling and puking up as much blood as they could, village after village with no foreseeable end.

This earth-shattering revelation caused another chorus of shocked intakes of air and a round of fearful murmurings among the dark crowd hovering towards the edges of the room— _what sort of madness must have possessed these vampires to seek never-ending bliss over all else?_ we were all dying to ask. _Yes feeding felt good… but that response was simply an evolutionarily advantageous tool to help encourage us to get over our human scruples about it… not to make us want to never stop doing it…_

"I do not know what dear Amar has been teaching them! This sort of selfish behavior is _infantile_ and yet they are fully grown!" Aro cried out, hopelessly puzzled and disgusted towards his friend's neglectful parenting.

Though his carefully chosen words did posit that perhaps Aro had seen born-vampires exhibit such behavior on a vastly smaller scale when they were younger…. Maybe even his own children—their little terrified shudders as their father cruelly condemned the practice seemed to indicate as much.

" _Clearly,_ they missed a pivotal lesson about the importance of restraint," Aro remarked, glancing appraisingly at his offspring, his expression softening as if to say: _You learned from your mistakes, I am not wroth with you for a few, minor, developmentally appropriate indiscretions_.

"I know firsthand that raising vampires from birth to not take human sacrifice lightly is a difficult task." He placed one hand over his unbeating heart as he referenced himself and floated closer to where the twins huddled next to his mate, gesturing towards them with the other pale appendage. "Titania and Lucretia may have taken a handful of unnecessary lives… and Valentina was worse than them combined…" he supplied somberly, referencing a born-vampire I had never heard of, whom I presumed to be his first daughter who had left the coven centuries ago.

His grave words earned several nods of agreement, as if the guard had seen the acts he referred to.

"…and your son…" Aro added, glancing towards Caius, whose mouth turned down into a malefic frown at the mention of his progeny, which suggested to me that their relationship was rather bitter.

"…of course he struggled when he was young…" Aro rationalized with a wry smile as if to say: _Any child of Caius' is, of course, not going to immediately comprehend why they must not slaughter humans for the hell of it._

Caius scoffed at Aro's subtle critique, but otherwise said nothing.

"But our children's mistakes were minor and they have all grown to be very controlled," Aro continued with his story. He spread his hands wide to indicate that he was praising everyone's parenting efforts in this room, as if even the members of the Volturi who had not biologically created offspring themselves were partially responsible for how Sulpicia and Athenodora's children had turned out.

His magnanimous gesture made me wonder if the others babysat often when the coven-leaders and their wives were busy with other matters. And I was surprised that the image of Titania and Lucretia curled up next to Chen as he animatedly read to them from a children's pop-up book didn't seem entirely out of place.

"The carnage poor Jasper and I saw, however… it was _horrific_ ," Aro supplied with a cringe in deliberate juxtaposition of his earlier lauding remarks. "I have not seen such devastation since the plague of the immortal children," he finished, gliding morosely backwards to stand beside Jasper again as he concluded his grisly tale.

"If that is the case, brother, then you ought to have punished them immediately!" Caius protested with an angry snarl. His ferocious condemnation earned the tacit approval of the majority of the guard, who had been whipped into a murderous frenzy, outraged by the enormous crimes that had been committed.

"If they are truly as careless as you describe, they will do this again!" he bit out, waving his hands about in sharp, vicious motions like he wanted to kill something right now. "Your mercy will bring about our desolation!"

"I whole-heartedly agree, my dear brother," Aro unexpectedly acquiesced. His voice was a gentle lullaby which soothed the ragged edges of Caius' tensing shoulders. "However I am… _reluctant_ to offend my friends by executing their children during such dire times," he gave as his reason for inaction, before he justified it further, his eyes flickering towards Alice as he spoke: "Their coven is nearly as large as ours… if a war between us were to break out now… we could lose valuable numbers before we face the newborns in Seattle."

Once again, I was stunned at how tactically Aro thought, considering every possible outcome of his choices before he made any serious moves—unlike Caius who was easily infuriated and spurred into violent action over one small infraction, Aro saw the whole picture, and judiciously weighed the pros against the cons. And now that Alice gave him even greater insight into the true ramifications of his actions… his strategies had only become more perfect than ever before.

"True," Caius reluctantly conceded through gritted teeth. "But behavior like that cannot go on unpunished forever, Aro. Our enemies will have all the more reason to criticize our reign if we permit our 'friends' to flagrantly disobey the laws we have established," he countered with surprising logicality of his own. Though his teeth frothing with venom as he ground out the words ruined the rational image.

"We must not allow any rumors of favoritism to weaken us!"

"Let our enemies spread all the rumors they want," Aro announced boldly. Evidently he was unthreatened by a few slanderous words that the Volturi's adversaries might say in response to his inaction, and probably were already saying anyway. "They do not change the fact that no one is exempt from the laws… not my friends, not my brothers and sisters… not even myself," he firmly decreed, jolting me with his rather modern affirmation that _all_ should be subject to the law, and not even royalty were given exemption.

"However, when we are facing a group as large as the Indian coven, we must approach the matter tactfully," he encouraged persuasively. "There is no need to rush to our deaths when this matter can be settled more peacefully if we wait for a more opportune opening, isn't that right, Marcus?"

"Hmmm. Less death is better, I suppose…" Marcus weakly intoned from his lazy position on his throne, though he didn't sound like he really cared either way.

"There. The majority has decided," Aro imperiously declared as he stepped forward again. This made Caius roll his eyes and shoot a scathing look at Marcus as if to say: _your vote doesn't really count._

"But do not dismay Caius," Aro abruptly placated in a gentle, silky tone, placing a jarringly tender hand on the livid creature before him. " _When_ the children are punished—and they shall be, I will make certain of it—you may have the honor of dismembering them yourself," he promised, steepling his fingers together in front of his lean chest and drifting soundlessly back from the now-slightly-less-irate vampire after he finished with his assurance.

Titania and Lucretia stiffened at the mention of punishment and buried their heads in their mother's long black, velvety gown. Compassionate Sulpicia responded by affectionately rubbing their little backs and speaking soft, Italian condolences in their cherubic, round ears.

"Fine," Caius snapped before he dramatically whirled around, his inky-black cape fluttering thunderously in his wake, and stomped off towards his throne. "But make your judgments swift," he growled as he rapidly climbed the short flight of steps behind Aro. "I do not like to be kept waiting."

"Of course," Aro acknowledged politely, twisting his head around to give Caius a deeply unnerving, dazzling white smile. "It will not be long."

Caius neglected to respond, but simply threw himself down into the lavish, filigreed chair with a derisive huff, and scowled at everything for a few seconds before some kind of epiphany seemed to strike him and he relaxed ever so subtly—perhaps the effects of Chelsea's gift? Or Jasper's? My inquisitive eyes flew between the two, but neither of them looked particularly deep in concentration at the moment—Jasper appeared mostly consumed in the effort of trying not to throw-up, and Chelsea seemed too perturbed by recent events to be consciously exerting her influence. Of course I knew from personal experience with her powers that they lingered for a while (they were still nagging me in the background over sixteen hours later) so perhaps that was the reason for Caius' sudden, though not complete, calm.

I wasn't allotted any additional time to think about that, however, as Aro suddenly interrupted my thoughts with a piercing strain of exuberant speech directed at the woman beside me. "Now then Alice, what was it that you wanted to show me?"

All pairs of crimson eyes honed in on Alice as she danced over to where Aro stood without a moment's hesitation. Many eyebrows raised in surprise at this revelation, and another chorus of low murmurings swept through the room as her high-heels clacked noisily against the stone floors and her hand lowered towards Aro's outstretched, upward-facing palm. Everyone besides Sulpicia and I hadn't seen and heard what I had earlier in my room, so they had no idea what Alice was about to reveal to their master. Though I could tell from the tone of their whispers and the way Corin clutched her non-combatant mate even tighter that they feared the worst.

When the dark-haired duo finally brushed their porcelain fingers against each other, the room abruptly fell silent. The guard decided to prioritize watching the actual exchange for clues over gossiping unfoundedly about the possible contents of Alice's most recent vision.

As usual, Aro fluidly sandwiched Alice's tiny hand between his, and bent slightly over the entanglement, his long black hair spilling in front of him to shroud his face from my view. Once in position, he simply waited for a few seconds as he took in her lifetime of thoughts.

After a while his broad shoulders began to shake ever so slightly while he maintained skin contact, and soon the jitteriness there spread down his back and shot through his arms until his entire frame was jittering like a malfunctioning massage chair. The dark wall of vampires on the other side of the room collectively stiffened and took a step backwards as they beheld the sight. And even Jasper, standing dejectedly a few feet away from the transaction of thoughts, shuffled uneasily away. It was never a good sign when our ancient leader began to tremble like that.

I took a sharp intake of breath as I prepared for the proverbial bomb to drop.

And in the very next millisecond, Aro broke away from Alice's skin like it had erupted in painful spikes all of a sudden. His hands shuddered and spasmodically curled and uncurled for a few seconds before he whirled dramatically to face the entire crowd to make the most astonishing announcement of the millennium.

"Make your preparations quickly," he commanded. "We are going to pay my dear friend Carlisle a visit."


End file.
